The Secretariat Horse -
Mark J. Gerard, the doc for shielder
Horses Secretariat and Kelso whose racing career was lost when he ran a signaler in a 1977 canal at Belmont Common, has died. He was 76.
He died June 21 in City from complications from a caress, according to his girl, Writer Aimee Titchnell of Los Angeles. He was at occupation on June 6 at a unchangeable in Wellington, Fla., where he activated traveller ponies, when he was stricken.
Gerard was a well-regarded veterinary at New Dynasty's outstanding racetracks in the 1960s and '70s, overseeing the eudaimonia of
hundreds of horses owned by the athletics's top stables and trainers.
"My member was wise the most key vet in the country. If anybody had a real problem with a framework, they would label Mike in," Titchnell told The Associated Pressing on Wednesday, referring to her friend by the denote his fellowship titled him. "He could direct
guardianship of horses suchlike no one."
On Sept. 23, 1977, an unexplored equine from Uruguay named Lebon won a Belmont Parkland soil contend at 57-1 odds. The frame was actually Cinzano, the top 3-year-old revolver in the Southeast Land land in 1976, who had won septet of figure stakes races.
Both horses had been imported by Gerard for other owners, and their identities had been switched. Gerard professional $81,000 for Cinzano and he oversubscribed him to Carpenter Taub for $150,000. Gerard cashed $1,600 for lowly Lebon and sold him to Jackass Moneyman for $9,500.
Time Cinzano was shocking the bettors at Belmont, investigators said the true Lebon's remains were credible drenched by loads of garbage at a wasteyard in Metropolis, N.Y.
That June, the day after the two
horses were flown from Uruguay to New Royalty, Gerard rumored that one of them, which he identified as Cinzano, had died at his farm on Oblong Island after fracturing his skull.
He filed an insurance require for the frame. Taub, who was not implicated in the intrigue, conventional an shelter resolution of $150,000.
Gerard then procured a credential of external readjustment from the Jockey Association for the soldiery he called Lebon, supplying photographs of Cinzano.
The lesser regarded buck's real jargon came to combust when a racing editor in Uruguay, thrilled by the tidings of low Lebon's unexpected conclusion, asked The Associated Pushing for a someone's rotary snap. He forthwith established Cinzano and alerted the New Dynasty Jockey Nine.
A dental test revealed the disagreement between the
horses: the image was a 4-year-old; Lebon was 5.
Gerard had bet $1,200 to win and $600 to pretence on Lebon, earning him $80,440 for the wagers.
Gerard was guiltless of two felony counts, but saved shamed of a offence for "fraudulent entries and practices in contests of intensify." He was sentenced to a period in jail and punished $1,000. The time was reduced on name, and he served a lesser jailhouse condemn.
"Every case he had to put downward a framing, you couldn't learn to him for days," Titchnell said, "so I can't see him doing anything to a framework. It's retributive so foreign to anything he would change through."
Titchnell said she never discussed the trouble in detail with her brother.
"The only feeling he would always say was he was not culpable," she said Wed. "I change never figured it out. He was making a lot of money. He was at the top of his job. He had it all. It never made discernment to anyone. It was a perplexity that gift probably never be resolved."
Whelped Clew Prophet Geronimus on Oct. 6, 1934, in Borough, he denatured his net sept when he became a doc.
During summers, Gerard worked at the New Dynasty tracks as an take rider and a hot traveller. One of his prototypical employers was Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons, who trained for the high-profile Phipps stock unchanging.
As Gerard's vet advance took off, he cared for Kentucky Chapeau winners
Secretariate, Riva Rooftree, Canonero II and Kelso, a five-time Framework of the Period.
After the trouble, with his raceway progression concluded, Gerard captive to Statesman, Fla., maximal of Area Beach, and cared for polo ponies.
"He had no children and
horses were everything to him since he was a little boy," Titchnell said.
Her brother was cremated and his ashes stray "where contented
horses snack," she said, quoting his typed instructions.
Too his sis, Gerard is survived by his spouse of 41 period, Alice.