Lucien Laurin (March 18, 1912 – June 26, 2000) was a Canadian jockey and Hall of Fame Thoroughbred horse trainer. He was best known for training Secretariat, who won the Triple Crown in 1973.
Life and career
Laurin was born in Joliette, Quebec. His career in Thoroughbred horse racing began in 1929 as a jockey at Blue Bonnets Raceway in Montreal, Quebec. Battling weight problems, after riding 161 race winners, in 1942 he began working as a trainer in New England, a job that would span 45 years and take him to the pinnacle of horse racing success. While working for two different stables, he enjoyed a long and successful association with owner Reginald N. Webster. For Webster, Laurin trained a number of winners including Quill, the 1958 American Champion Two-Year-Old Filly, and Amberoid, who won the 1966 Wood Memorial Stakes and gave Laurin his first of six American Classics, the Belmont Stakes.
His son, Roger Laurin, worked as a trainer at Christopher Chenery's Meadow Stable and when Roger accepted an offer to work for Ogden Phipps, he suggested to Penny Chenery Tweedy that his father might help them on a temporary basis. Coming out of retirement in 1971, Lucien Laurin went to work at the Meadow Stable for what was supposed to be a temporary period. At that time, the stable was having financial difficulties but things soon changed. With their colt, Riva Ridge, earning more than $500,000 and being named American Champion Two-Year-Old Colt for 1971, Lucien Laurin and the Meadow Stable would soon become the number one stable in racing, winning numerous important Stakes races and five of the six U.S. Triple Crown races in 1972–73.
Under Lucien Laurin, Riva Ridge, with fellow Canadian jockey Ron Turcotte in the saddle, won the 1972 Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes. and enshrined in the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame the following year.
Death
Laurin was living at his home in Key Largo, Florida, when he died in 2000 at a Miami hospital.
Popular culture
In the 2010 Disney film Secretariat, Laurin was portrayed by John Malkovich.