On this episode of Our American Stories, Randall Wallace is the writer and director of films such as Braveheart, We Were Soldiers, The Man in the Iron Mask, Heaven Is for Real, Pearl Harbor, and Secretariat. Today, he shares a story about Penny Chenery, the owner of the 1973 Triple Crown winner—a Thoroughbred named Secretariat.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. Branda Wallace is
the writer and or director of films such as Brave Heart,
We Were Soldiers, the Man in the Iron Mask, Heaven
is for Real, Pearl Harbor, and Secretariat. Here he is
to share the story of Penny Chennery, owner of the
nineteen seventy three Triple Crown winner. And we're of course
(00:32):
talking about that thoroughbred, that aforementioned thoroughbred Secretariat. Let's take
a listen.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Penny Chennery was the owner of Secretariat. And I have
made a number of films that I've had the incredible
blessing of getting to know the actual human beings that
lived the story. And Penny Chennery and Secretariat are great examples.
(01:06):
Also the family that Heavit is for real, It's about
the Burpo family. Have gotten to know them as well.
Penny Chennery was a remarkable woman. Now, what drew the
studio and others to the tale of Secretariat was obviously
the achievements of the horse. But you can't scratch the
(01:29):
surface of that story without coming full face into Penny Chennery.
She was a mother of five and basically a housewife
whose father had loved horses. They owned a horse breeding
farm in Virginia. And it wasn't the kind of Lexington,
(01:51):
Kentucky gorgeous, picturesque, almost Norman Rockwell kind of horse farm.
It was a hard scrabble place that they had. But
as her father began to sink into dementia and Pennies
children were growing, and she was finding that place that
many of us come to when we think, Okay, being
(02:12):
a parent has demanded all of my attention. But what
am I going to do after that? And how am
I going to demonstrate for my children the kind of
person that I want them to be. That you sacrifice
time with your children if you go off to slay
dragons yourself, but you also show them that you are
(02:37):
and they are dragon slayers, and this is who we
must become. So the story came across my desk a
friend of mine at Disney and called me in and
asked me to take a look at it, and I
said right away, this is fascinating. I would really love
(02:57):
to do this, but I really need to spent some
time with Penny Chennery. Now there's a story about Penny
that has nothing to do with the racehorse, but I
think it's really insightful Penny had a guy who worked
for her, who was in charge of her sort of
brand management, which was a new thing about how do
(03:20):
we deal with all of the things beyond just racing
horses that there is a brand name, there's maybe merchandise
that we could sell, other things. Well, he applied for
that job with Penny, and Penny was living in a
retirement community at that point, and he told me this story.
(03:43):
His name is Leonard. Leonard said, when I went into
interview with Penny, I saw on her coffee table a
picture of an older gentleman. Penny was ninety at this point,
and maybe older than ninety. And he saw a picture
of an older gentleman and he said, Penny, I've studied
your life and I know the faces of the men
(04:05):
that you were married to. But because Penny had had
a couple marriages, three I think, and that's not one
of your husbands, who is that? And Penny said, well,
that's my boyfriend. Now Penny's in her nineties and he went, oh,
your boyfriend. Oh that's great. So he went back the
next day to interview her again and there was a
(04:25):
different picture and he said, wait, Penny, that's not the
same picture. That was here yesterday and she said, no,
I've got three boyfriends. And I put up the different
picture depending on who's coming over. And I said, you
get out of here. I don't believe the story. He
goes go ask her, and I went to Penny and
(04:47):
I said, Penny, Leonard says, you had a picture of
a gentleman on it and you said that's my boyfriend.
And she looked at me and she went so, and
I said, well, he said that he came back the
next day and you had a different picture because you
wrote date pictures based on your boyfriends are coming over.
And she went, so, Penny, you're my hero. I want
(05:11):
to grow up to be you when I grow up.
And I had one one more tremendous insight with Penny
that she shared with me. You know, I'm not into
victim mentality. Things that have happened that shouldn't have happened,
and that that were awful and sometimes even worse than awful,
(05:36):
but it's the overcoming that's the story we need to tell.
Penny and I were at the Kentucky Derby after Secretariat
had come out, and the horse racing world, of course,
really loved Secretariat and everybody was flocked around Penny. Everybody
wanted to shake her hand and get a story to
(05:56):
tell about Penny. And when the race started, the Kentucky
Derby so captivating and exciting, and everybody we were out
on the balcony. I was standing next to Penny watching
the race, and the Kentucky Derby unfolded, and the race
was over, and everybody in this exubert, almost drunk with excitement,
(06:20):
filtered back inside and Penny and I were left alone.
I was standing there at the Kentucky Derby with Penny Chennery,
just the two of us, overlooking the race track, and
I thought, what a moment this, this and the two
of us were standing there together, and I said to her, Penny,
(06:42):
I gave you the best I could to tell you
your story and the story of your horse, and to
do it fairly and honestly. And I know to put
it into two hours. We had to condense and be
impressionistic in places, but we all did our very best.
Is there anything that we missed or that you haven't
(07:03):
shared with me? And it's like that song the Gambler,
The night got deathly quiet, the afternoon got deathly quiet
around me. Anyway, and Penny said, I sat right down
there in that box, and she pointed to it. It
was just twenty or thirty feet away from us. She said,
I sat there many many afternoons by myself. The other
(07:26):
owners tolerated me, but they never accepted me. And she
wasn't bitter, but she was being honest, like this is
what she faced, this is what she overcame. And that's
why she has a great story to tell, is she
didn't let that stop her. And I had an experience
(07:49):
she reminded me of my mother in many ways, in
her strength, in her blue blue eyes, she reminded me
of my mother. And we were doing a screening of
We Were Soldiers, the first public screening of We Were
Soldiers for test audience. And my father had just passed away,
so a few months ago before. So I was calling
(08:12):
my mother every day. And I called my mother and
I said, Mamma, how are you doing? And she said
I'm doing okay. How are you doing? I said, well,
I'm nervous today. My mother said why. I said, well,
we're going to test the movie for a public audience.
And all these critics and some amateur critics like college
film students and others they're going to come, and they
(08:34):
like to write snarky comments, and critics even seem to
enjoy being able to pick out the wrong things or
things that they can criticize. And my mother said, well,
why does that make you nervous? And I said, well,
I put my blood, in my sweat and my tears
and my money into this movie. It's going to make
(08:55):
me nervous. And my mother said, Honey, if they crucified Jesus,
there's going to be some people that don't like you.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
And a terrific job on the production and editing by
our own Greg Hangler, and a special thanks to Randall
Walls for sharing with us a few stories about Penny Chenery,
the owner of the nineteen seventy three Triple Crown winner Secretariat.
By the way, we do our own story on Secretariat's
epic win at the Belmont Stakes from beginning to end,
(09:26):
and also quite a bit about Penny and the horse itself.
And you heard just a little bit about the character
of Penny Chenery, what she had to overcome being a
woman in those trainers boxes and in those owners boxes,
and yet she overcame, triumphed and became a legend in
the business. Penny Chenery's story a great overcoming story, a
(09:49):
part of a great movie secretariat. Here on our American stories.
And we continue with our American stories. Branda Wallace is
the writer and or director of films such as Brave Heart,
We Were Soldiers, the Man in the Iron Mask, Heaven
is for Real, Pearl Harbor, and Secretariat. Here he is
to share the story of Penny Chennery, owner of the
nineteen seventy three Triple Crown winner. And we're of course
(00:32):
talking about that thoroughbred, that aforementioned thoroughbred Secretariat. Let's take
a listen.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Penny Chennery was the owner of Secretariat. And I have
made a number of films that I've had the incredible
blessing of getting to know the actual human beings that
lived the story. And Penny Chennery and Secretariat are great examples.
(01:06):
Also the family that Heavit is for real, It's about
the Burpo family. Have gotten to know them as well.
Penny Chennery was a remarkable woman. Now, what drew the
studio and others to the tale of Secretariat was obviously
the achievements of the horse. But you can't scratch the
(01:29):
surface of that story without coming full face into Penny Chennery.
She was a mother of five and basically a housewife
whose father had loved horses. They owned a horse breeding
farm in Virginia. And it wasn't the kind of Lexington,
(01:51):
Kentucky gorgeous, picturesque, almost Norman Rockwell kind of horse farm.
It was a hard scrabble place that they had. But
as her father began to sink into dementia and Pennies
children were growing, and she was finding that place that
many of us come to when we think, Okay, being
(02:12):
a parent has demanded all of my attention. But what
am I going to do after that? And how am
I going to demonstrate for my children the kind of
person that I want them to be. That you sacrifice
time with your children if you go off to slay
dragons yourself, but you also show them that you are
(02:37):
and they are dragon slayers, and this is who we
must become. So the story came across my desk a
friend of mine at Disney and called me in and
asked me to take a look at it, and I
said right away, this is fascinating. I would really love
(02:57):
to do this, but I really need to spent some
time with Penny Chennery. Now there's a story about Penny
that has nothing to do with the racehorse, but I
think it's really insightful Penny had a guy who worked
for her, who was in charge of her sort of
brand management, which was a new thing about how do
(03:20):
we deal with all of the things beyond just racing
horses that there is a brand name, there's maybe merchandise
that we could sell, other things. Well, he applied for
that job with Penny, and Penny was living in a
retirement community at that point, and he told me this story.
(03:43):
His name is Leonard. Leonard said, when I went into
interview with Penny, I saw on her coffee table a
picture of an older gentleman. Penny was ninety at this point,
and maybe older than ninety. And he saw a picture
of an older gentleman and he said, Penny, I've studied
your life and I know the faces of the men
(04:05):
that you were married to. But because Penny had had
a couple marriages, three I think, and that's not one
of your husbands, who is that? And Penny said, well,
that's my boyfriend. Now Penny's in her nineties and he went, oh,
your boyfriend. Oh that's great. So he went back the
next day to interview her again and there was a
(04:25):
different picture and he said, wait, Penny, that's not the
same picture. That was here yesterday and she said, no,
I've got three boyfriends. And I put up the different
picture depending on who's coming over. And I said, you
get out of here. I don't believe the story. He
goes go ask her, and I went to Penny and
(04:47):
I said, Penny, Leonard says, you had a picture of
a gentleman on it and you said that's my boyfriend.
And she looked at me and she went so, and
I said, well, he said that he came back the
next day and you had a different picture because you
wrote date pictures based on your boyfriends are coming over.
And she went, so, Penny, you're my hero. I want
(05:11):
to grow up to be you when I grow up.
And I had one one more tremendous insight with Penny
that she shared with me. You know, I'm not into
victim mentality. Things that have happened that shouldn't have happened,
and that that were awful and sometimes even worse than awful,
(05:36):
but it's the overcoming that's the story we need to tell.
Penny and I were at the Kentucky Derby after Secretariat
had come out, and the horse racing world, of course,
really loved Secretariat and everybody was flocked around Penny. Everybody
wanted to shake her hand and get a story to
(05:56):
tell about Penny. And when the race started, the Kentucky
Derby so captivating and exciting, and everybody we were out
on the balcony. I was standing next to Penny watching
the race, and the Kentucky Derby unfolded, and the race
was over, and everybody in this exubert, almost drunk with excitement,
(06:20):
filtered back inside and Penny and I were left alone.
I was standing there at the Kentucky Derby with Penny Chennery,
just the two of us, overlooking the race track, and
I thought, what a moment this, this and the two
of us were standing there together, and I said to her, Penny,
(06:42):
I gave you the best I could to tell you
your story and the story of your horse, and to
do it fairly and honestly. And I know to put
it into two hours. We had to condense and be
impressionistic in places, but we all did our very best.
Is there anything that we missed or that you haven't
(07:03):
shared with me? And it's like that song the Gambler,
The night got deathly quiet, the afternoon got deathly quiet
around me. Anyway, and Penny said, I sat right down
there in that box, and she pointed to it. It
was just twenty or thirty feet away from us. She said,
I sat there many many afternoons by myself. The other
(07:26):
owners tolerated me, but they never accepted me. And she
wasn't bitter, but she was being honest, like this is
what she faced, this is what she overcame. And that's
why she has a great story to tell, is she
didn't let that stop her. And I had an experience
(07:49):
she reminded me of my mother in many ways, in
her strength, in her blue blue eyes, she reminded me
of my mother. And we were doing a screening of
We Were Soldiers, the first public screening of We Were
Soldiers for test audience. And my father had just passed away,
so a few months ago before. So I was calling
(08:12):
my mother every day. And I called my mother and
I said, Mamma, how are you doing? And she said
I'm doing okay. How are you doing? I said, well,
I'm nervous today. My mother said why. I said, well,
we're going to test the movie for a public audience.
And all these critics and some amateur critics like college
film students and others they're going to come, and they
(08:34):
like to write snarky comments, and critics even seem to
enjoy being able to pick out the wrong things or
things that they can criticize. And my mother said, well,
why does that make you nervous? And I said, well,
I put my blood, in my sweat and my tears
and my money into this movie. It's going to make
(08:55):
me nervous. And my mother said, Honey, if they crucified Jesus,
there's going to be some people that don't like you.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
And a terrific job on the production and editing by
our own Greg Hangler, and a special thanks to Randall
Walls for sharing with us a few stories about Penny Chenery,
the owner of the nineteen seventy three Triple Crown winner Secretariat.
By the way, we do our own story on Secretariat's
epic win at the Belmont Stakes from beginning to end,
(09:26):
and also quite a bit about Penny and the horse itself.
And you heard just a little bit about the character
of Penny Chenery, what she had to overcome being a
woman in those trainers boxes and in those owners boxes,
and yet she overcame, triumphed and became a legend in
the business. Penny Chenery's story a great overcoming story, a
(09:49):
part of a great movie secretariat. Here on our American stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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