<i>Secretariat's statue at Belmont Park.</i>

Secretariat, AKA "Big Red", dominated thoroughbred racing in the 1970s and is considered by many to be the greatest racehorse ever. Big Red won the coveted Triple Crown in 1973. W

hen Secretariat won the Kentucky Derby, he did so while accomplishing a feat never seen before -- "negative splitting." Secretariat ran each quarter-mile segment faster than the one before. Secretariat's winning time would have won any Kentucky Derby before or since (Source: Wikipedia.org). Secretariat died October 4, 1989.

Before his burial, a necropsy revealed that Secretariat had a heart approximately twice the size of a normal horse's heart -- the largest the experienced veterinarian had ever seen in a horse.