"He Is Moving Like a Tremendous Machine!"

This week marks the 45th anniversary of Secretariat's epic win in the 1973 Belmont Stakes. Also on this day, forty-five years later, Chic Anderson's call of the 1973 Belmont Stakes for CBS Sports remains nearly as legendary as the horse who won the race.

His call perfectly captured the moment: "Secretariat is widening now. He is moving like a tremendous machine!" Everybody who was watching the race live on television remembers that call.

Anderson also called the 1978 Belmont for CBS, and his call was almost as great as his 1973 performance. Given it was the Affirmed and Alydar Belmont, the best contested race I ever saw in my entire life, nobody but Anderson would do calling it.

Anderson unfortunately died young, only 47, in 1979.

This article for Sports Illustrated remembering Anderson is great and almost looks like it was written by the late, great Bill Nack. A snip:

Two things: First, Anderson called that Belmont only for CBS; track announcer Dave Johnson called the race for the live audience. If you were at Belmont Park that day, you heard Johnson, not Anderson. Second, there seems to be little certainty as to where Anderson would have stood while calling the race that defined his career. Johnson would have been in the announcer’s stand at the top of the Belmont grandstand. Cassidy suggests that Anderson was probably beneath that position, in the clubhouse, but admits that’s just an educated guess based on where other announcers had been. The upper-levels of the Belmont grandstand are a labyrinth of hallways and small offices overlooking the track. Anderson could have been in any of them, always certainly wearing the ivory suit in which he did jockey interviews right before the race.

Yes, Dave Johnson called the race at the track that day, but unfortunately for him, nobody remembers his call. He peddled a recording of some of his calls for Secretariat years later, and his call of the race was nothing spectacular. Anderson's call, however, is legendary among not just track announcers but sportscasters.

The author of this article ought to write a book about Anderson.

Here is the FindAGrave memorial for Anderson.