The Hearts of the Meadow
This book seems to pick up where Raymond Wolfe's 2001 edition of 'Secretariat' left off. In the footnote at the end of that work Raymond updated the readers on the condition of the Meadow in 1998, with Ross Sternhiemer's purchase of the estate. 'Secretariat's Meadow' begins there and takes us back into the history of the land and its people, the players and circumstances that generated the spirit of determination that would eventually give to America if not its greatest then certainly one of its most gifted Thoroughbred performers. A brief synopsis of this piece might look like this: with beginnings dating back to the early 1700s, the land rooted in plantations and slave ownership, we are led through ante and postbellum periods with regard to specific families, characters , social conditions, and geography. At the core is one clan, the Morris family, headed by a physician who acquired the acreage from wealthy landowners. The Meadow remained with the family for more than a century when in the clutches of the devastation and poverty the civil war left behind, the land was sold. The war filtered out the strong from the weak, and James Chennery and wife Ida, relations who resided at the Meadow for a time, were determined to survive the aftermath. Moving to Richmond and then to Ashland, their future lied with the education of their children. All their sons and daughters succeeded in their own respective professions, journalism, medicine, and engineering, the latter ascribed to the ambitious and creative Christopher who would eventually return the Meadow to the family. Developing a passion for horses and horse racing in particular, young Christopher set out to accomplish his most pressing need, to secure his finances. Years later, after co-founding a successful utilities operation in New York and establishing financial independence, he was then in position to pursue his passion, to purchase and return the Meadow to its family roots and install a Thoroughbred breedership upon it. The rest is history. The story of Secretariat is one of the determination bred long before into the land and blood of the Meadow, into the hearts of a people who were determined to survive the devastation of war, and into the souls of a handful of Virginians who longed to return the land to the best parts of its past. I sense this story will be told and re-told according to differing views by later generations, perhaps a work that chronicles all of American racing and its roots in aristocratic circles of which Virginia with its Bullfield and Meadow is at the epicenter. Whatever the piece, the Meadow with its people and horses offers fertile ground for choice. In his work 'The Horse God Built', Lawrence Scanlan tells of a young woman he met working at the Meadow who used to hear a galloping horse on its track at 3 am on certain days. Others heard it as well. The spooky sound left Whitney Jones believing it was the spirit of Secretariat breezing through his birth place, continuing to live the dreams of all his connections and predecessors. She recalled another incident when opening a gate, she had the experience of something powerful running through her. The Meadow's pride for its finest sons and daughters, both human and non-human, has been carved deep into the bone of its land and people.
This is a wonderfully written and researched account of a segment of American history. The only suggestion offered is for the inclusion of an appendix detailing the historical events of The Meadow in a chronological manner. This can provide a quick reference tool for readers.
