“American Pharoah is a Secretariat descendent.”
True, but still not the same caliber of greatness as Secretariat.
Ummm… just making a comment on the pedigree; I never said anything about ability.
Secretariat in many ways was a freak of nature and genetics, the fact that his heart was 3x the size of a typical horse is huge (put it this way, many of the performance enhancing drugs banned in horseracing are drugs that increase the number of red blood cells an animal has, which in turn increases the oxygen in the blood, Secretariats heart did that naturally).
As far as times being slower, I wonder if some of that might be the way horses are screened (and I am just musing on this, I have no inside knowledge). I don’t know when they started testing horses, but allegations of doping were common when I was growing up, and there were more than a few cases involving organized crime and tracks where part of the indictment involved doping the animals. I am not saying Secretariat or any other winning horse was drugged, but if typical times have slowed down overall, there must be a reason for it, given you would expect with the knowledge of animal physiology, training methods and so forth, you would expect it would be getting better. All you have to do is look at baseball, where the steroid era sticks out like a sore thumb, since they cracked down hitting has plummeted (I am not entirely convinced it is because pitchers are that much better)…
It also could be other factors, too, given the value of these horses, they may not want to risk them and thus take it easy, it could be that things other than drugs, like training regimens and such, have been changed in terms of rules , given I haven’t followed it all that closely in over 30 years, it could also reflect that the business itself is smaller, horse racing, outside the glamor events, is not the sport it once was, so it might reflect business dynamics, too, lot less breeders, so a lot less competition in terms of horses that actually race…
[Cool perspective](http://www.drf.com/slideshows/horse-racings-biggest-rivalries?photo=6-secretariat_vs._sham) of the '73 Belmont.
This article has a link to the last video footage ever taken of Secretariat, a few days before he was put to sleep in 1989:
http://deadspin.com/please-enjoy-the-last-footage-ever-taken-of-secretariat-487464138
Despite his obvious limp from his foot problems, he still frolics and plays in the grass for a few seconds at the end.
Thanks to you, @Madison85, I have now spent the better part of two hours looking at horse pedigrees! 
This will keep me busy during my ride home!!! 
@consolation So then you noticed the same ancestor twice in American Pharoah’s lineage as well?
Yup. Not too uncommon, since Northern Dancer was such a popular sire.