Is Your Point of Reference YOU?

The Kentucky Derby—Oaks and Derby as the folks at Churchill Downs like to call it—is the first weekend in May, coming right up this May 3^rd and 4^th.  Although the big race itself lasts only two minutes, this event has been drawing thousands of people to Louisville for the last 139 years.  I’ve never been myself, but I remember well the year 1973 when one particular horse made the headlines.  I was a young teacher then and didn’t care so much about horses, yet to this day I still remember the stories that followed  about one very spirited horse who outran his closest competitor by more than thirty lengths at the Belmont to win the Triple Crown.  It was Penny Chenery Tweedy’s Secretariat.

You know those nights where you just want to relax in a comfortable chair and watch a movie?  Last night was one of those interminable rainy day movie nights with Secretariat starring Diane Lane and John Malkovich.   As I settled in to the first few minutes of the movie with only the expectation of some acceptable entertainment, I soon found myself for the next two hours hovering just above the surface of weeping. 

Now, I’m not the kind of person who cries over a horse, but this dramatization of a horse and his owner-trainer-handler-jockey team, who never harbored the idea of losing, struck a chord inside me that resonated much deeper than one more horse tale.  The actual horse, Big Red, whose “stage name” was Secretariat, set a new world record at the Belmont Stakes, winning with a 31-length gap.  As Charles Hatton of The Daily Racing Form described the horse, “His only point of reference is himself.” 

I suppose words like dauntlessness, pluck, perseverance, stoutheartedness, and endurance all come to mind, but I’m really not talking about horse racing here, which is no doubt the source of the attack to the seat of my emotions.  If we were to admit it, all of us want to experience surpassing our own point of reference by 31 lengths. 

When we don’t get that second chance, when we feel we might as well give up, when what we want could only be a long shot, when our competition is close on our heels and breathing down our necks and we wonder if the struggle is worth the attempt—and then we actually win, was it because we got lucky, or was it that we went the distance and just didn’t quit? 

One of my favorite movies is a story of redemption, The Holiday, with Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, and Jack Black.  No, it’s not about a horse, but it is about the same theme.  In one scene, Arthur tells Iris, “In the movies there’s the best friend and then there’s the leading lady.  You’re behaving like the best friend.”  To which Iris replies, “You should be the leading lady of your own life…That was brilliant, Arthur….brilliant but brutal.”

Secretariat’s point of reference made him the star of his own life, a position that we covet but don’t always know how to procure for ourselves. I don’t have the answer, but I do know this:  When you want something and you believe it’s within the realm of possibility, and you go for it and never give up, then, as Paolo Coelho says, all the universe comes together to help you obtain it.    

For my friends attending the Derby this weekend, don't forget your hat!