BALTIMORE — George Cusimano heard the big, red horse coming more than he saw him.
Sitting atop pace setter Ecole Etage in the early stages of the 1973 Preakness Stakes, Cusimano had to know Secretariat would move on him eventually. But around the first turn in the 1 3/16-mile race? That did not compute.
“Like a freight train,” Cusimano told reporters afterward, trying to capture how it felt, how it sounded, to be passed by the most awesome racehorse anyone had ever encountered.
