DURING Belmont week in New York Mike and Diane de Kock were honoured to meet Penny Chenery, who bred and raced the great Secretariat, winner of the Triple Crown in 1973.

In addition to breeding Secretariat, Chenery bred Saratoga Dew, who became the first New York-bred horse to ever win aEclipse Award when she was voted the 1992 US Champion Three-Year-Old Filly.

In 2006, the National Thoroughbred Racing Association honoured her with the Eclipse Award of Merit for a lifetime of outstanding achievement in thoroughbred racing. Chenery was portrayed by actress Diane Lane in the 2010 motion picture, Secretariat. Chenery herself appeared in a cameo role in the film as a spectator at the Belmont Stakes.

(-file facts from Wikipedia).