Seattle Slew

Seattle Slew (USA) 1974 Dark Bay or Brown Colt   Bold Reasoning (USA) x My Charmer (USA), by Poker (USA)

Seattle Slew’s story is that of the Ugly Duckling. Turned down for the elite Keeneland July sale, he sold for a modest price at a lesser auction only to become the best horse of his generation and one of the all-time greats.

Foaled on Ben Castleman’s White Horse Farm on February 15, 1974, Seattle Slew was not a pretty foal. He was big and coarse, with lop ears and an independent disposition that made him quite a handful.

The future champion’s pedigree was not the height of fashion, but it was quite respectable. His sire, Bold Reasoning, was a son of the speedy Bold Ruler horse Boldnesian and could really run when he was right. Although plagued by physical problems, Bold Reasoning won the Jersey Derby and the Withers Stakes as a three-year-old and ran second in the Metropolitan Handicap at four. Unfortunately, his hard luck continued at stud as he died in 1976 before Seattle Slew could show what he was made of.

My Charmer was not as brilliant as Bold Reasoning was when at his best, but she was a solid runner who numbered the 1972 Fair Grounds Oaks among her six wins from 32 starts. A daughter of the good grass runner Poker, she came from a fine family as she was a granddaughter of 1948 champion juvenile filly Myrtle Charm and a great-great-granddaughter of 1936 champion sprinter Myrtlewood. The Bold Reasoning colt was her first foal, so no one knew at that time what kind of broodmare My Charmer was going to turn out to be.

After being turned down by Keeneland July as having a marginal pedigree and conformation by the standards of that sale, the husky colt was entered in the 1975 Fasig-Tipton Lexington sale. Although he still was no beauty contest winner, he had filled out into a big, rugged-looking fellow whose appearance was marred by a turned-out right forefoot. The defect scared off a number of potential buyers, but Ted Bates of the Fasig-Tipton sales company had noted, “Should not preclude a racing career” when cataloging the colt. He was right.

Ben Castleman was out to sell, but he thought enough of My Charmer’s son that he put a reserve of $15,000 on him. The future champion sold for $17,500 to a quartet of racing newcomers who held their horses under the name of Wooden Horse Investments but who would go down in racing history as the “Slew Crew”: Mickey and Karen Taylor, and veterinarian Jim Hill and his wife Sally. The partners gave their new colt a name that reflected both the Taylors’ origins in the state of Washington and Jim Hill’s boyhood home near a swampy area or “slew” close by Fort Myers, Florida: Seattle Slew.

Seattle Slew was one of nine yearlings purchased for Wooden Horse Investments. As he did not look as if he would be a precocious sort, he was sent to Billy Turner for training. Turner had originally been a steeplechase trainer and was noted for his patience with horses. He also had a great asset in the form of his wife Paula, who was the person who actually broke Seattle Slew to saddle. Not without difficulty, however; as she later recalled, he was the toughest yearling she had ever broken in. He was not vicious, but he was stubborn and determined to have his own way.

The big colt was going through a growth spurt while he was being broken, and he was so gangly that Paula Turner gave him the nickname “Baby Huey” after an overgrown baby duck who was a popular comic book character at the time. It fitted; he was so clumsy and overgrown that he could hardly get out of his own way at a gallop. But he served notice in April of 1976 that he might have some ability; asked to breeze with another horse from the gate, he took off and clicked off three furlongs in :35 flat with his exercise rider hauling on the reins to slow him down.

Another trainer might have been tempted to go ahead and throw Slew into competition at that point, but Turner knew the colt was not physically or mentally ready and kept him mostly to long gallops designed to build the colt’s wind and muscle. He had hoped to bring the colt out at Saratoga but was stymied by a minor injury to a hind leg which kept the colt from being ready until the fall Belmont meeting.

Slew made his first start at Belmont on September 20, 1974; by agreement of the partnership, he would race in the name of Karen Taylor. Jean Cruguet, who had worked the colt for Turner a number of times, was aboard. The story of the race was simple: Slew took the early lead and won easily by five lengths in a swift 1:10-1/5 for the six furlongs.

It was not quite as easy in Slew’s second start, a seven-furlong allowance for non-winners of two other than maiden or claiming on October 5. The inexperienced colt was caught flat-footed at the break and was last away of the eight runners. The poor break made not the slightest difference to Slew’s hapless rivals, however; the big colt was in front within the first hundred yards and pulled away to win by three and a half lengths in 1:22 flat.

On October 16, Seattle Slew faced the biggest challenge of his young career in the Champagne Stakes (gr. I). Among the other colts entered were For the Moment, winner of the Futurity Stakes (gr, I) and Ali Oop, winner of the Sapling Stakes (gr. I). Nonetheless, Seattle Slew was an odds-on favorite, and he more than justified his status the instant he burst from the starting gate. Setting sizzling fractions, he scorched home nine and three-quarters lengths in front without being fully extended. His time of 1:34-2/5 was not only a stakes record but was the fastest mile ever recorded by a juvenile, breaking the record set by Count Fleet in the 1942 Champagne Stakes.

That was it for Seattle Slew’s juvenile season: three starts in the space of less than a month. Yet the colt was so devastating in his brief campaign that he earned the Eclipse Award as American champion two-year-old colt. He was also awarded highweight of 126 pounds on the Daily Racing Form’s Experimental Free Handicap, though only one pound above Run Dusty Run and Royal Ski. Events would prove that this measure of his superiority was a gross underestimate.

Slew had almost five months to grow up and fill out between his last race at two and his first start at three, a March 9 seven-furlong sprint at Hialeah. All he did for his debut was break the Hialeah track record (he was clocked in 1:20-3/5) under a hand ride, winning by nine lengths. The colt next demonstrated that he could be rated enough to stay at least nine furlongs by winning the Flamingo Stakes, cruising home by four lengths in 1:47-2/5.

Slew emerged from the Flamingo in fine fettle, but one could almost see the pressure cranking down on Billy Turner. Not only did he have to cope with the usual media circus attending a hot Derby prospect, but he had to cope with the Slew Crew making daily visits to the barn to see how Slew was faring. In addition, he had to cope with the doubts of Jean Cruguet, who felt that Turner was undertraining the colt for his next start, the Wood Memorial. Turner’s reply was that he had little need to sharpen Slew’s speed and was more concerned with having a fresh horse going into the Triple Crown series.

Slew duly won the Wood by three and a quarter lengths, but Cruguet reported that he seemed tired at the end. That was picked up by the media, which questioned both Slew’s conditioning and his stamina. Turner fielded the questioning with remarkable grace, considering everything. What most of the media members had not caught on to was that Turner was not simply training the colt for the Kentucky Derby; he was training with the Triple Crown in mind and actually wanted the colt to peak for the Belmont Stakes, not the Derby.

Slew’s task at Churchill Downs was doubtless made somewhat easier by the defection of several solid contenders due to injury or illness. Among them were Royal Ski; Clev Er Tell, winner of the Louisiana Derby (gr. II) and Arkansas Derby (gr. II); Cormorant, winner of the Gotham Stakes (gr. II); J. O. Tobin, champion juvenile in England in 1976; and *Habitony, winner of the Santa Anita Derby (gr. I). But his task was also complicated by poor weather during Derby Week, which delayed his final pre-race blowout from Thursday to Friday. Turner cut the work back from five to three furlongs rather than risk tiring the colt too much for the big race. Seattle Slew clicked off the three furlongs in :34-2/5, but was he fit enough for a mile and a quarter?

The answer came just a little more than two minutes after the gates flew open for the 103^rd Kentucky Derby. Coming out of the gate with his head turned to the right, Slew was almost sideways at the break, costing himself precious ground, then got boxed in early. It seemed that his chances might be lost right there, but anyone who thought Slew was done didn’t know the colt’s determined nature. The instant a sliver of daylight appeared, he charged for it, broke through, and gunned up to pacesetter For the Moment by the time the field passed under the wire for the first time. Cruguet then took hold of the colt, waiting until Slew was coming off the final turn to ask him for his run. The colt responded eagerly, opening up three lengths, and easily held Run Dusty Run safe by one and three-quarters lengths.

The next stop was Pimlico, where Slew was met by two fresh challengers: Cormorant, now recovered from his illness, and J. O. Tobin, who had taken an unusual road to the Preakness by prepping in the Coronado Handicap, a mile turf race at Hollywood Park. But Slew himself was a fitter, stronger horse than he had been going into the Derby, and he was more than up to the competition. After dueling Cormorant into defeat while running the first six furlongs in 1:09-4/5, Slew simply coasted home and won by one and one-half lengths. His time of 1:54-2/5 tied Secretariat’s official clocking and clearly could have been faster had the colt been pressed for more speed.

Slew now shipped to New York for the Belmont Stakes, the race Billy Turner had been pointing to all along. While he trained impressively coming into the race, two questions remained to be answered. One was how he would handle the mile and a half distance. The other was how he would handle a muddy track. Only one other horse, Majestic Prince, had ever come into the Belmont as an undefeated Derby-Preakness winner, and he had failed to complete the Triple Crown. Would Slew succeed where the Prince had failed?

The big colt answered all the questions in the manner of a champion. While he did not overwhelm his field as had Secretariat, he led at every call and gradually edged away with every stride. With Cruguet standing in the stirrups and waving to the crowd during the last few yards, Seattle Slew crossed the line four lengths in front to become American racing’s tenth Triple Crown winner and the only one to complete the sweep while still unbeaten. His time of 2:29-3/5 did not come close to menacing Secretariat’s record of 2:24, but then nobody was expecting that kind of speed over a track officially rated “muddy.”

Turner wanted to rest Slew after the Triple Crown. He knew that the colt could not stay in peak form forever and felt that it would be best to freshen him before beginning a late summer and fall campaign. Tentatively, he was looking at the Travers Stakes as the colt’s next major target and then a possible showdown with the reigning Horse of the Year, Forego. But the Slew Crew had other ideas. Hollywood Park had announced prior to the Belmont that they would sweeten the purse of the $200,000 Swaps Stakes (gr. I) with a $100,000 bonus for Slew if he could sweep the Triple Crown and then win the Swaps.. Not only was the extra money enticing, but the Taylors wanted to show the colt off to West Coast fans.

Slew made the trip to Hollywood Park but Turner did not, silently hinting at the rift developing between the colt’s owners and his trainer. One questions whether Slew really showed up either. Although he worked briskly prior to the race, he was clearly a tired colt in the Swaps itself and struggled home in fourth place behind a brilliant performance by J. O. Tobin, beaten some sixteen lengths. He would follow up the race with a benefit appearance at Longacres in Washington, but he raced no more in 1977.

Forego also bowed out due to injury prior to the season-ending fall races, and Slew’s undefeated Triple Crown sweep was enough to carry him to titles both as American champion three-year-old male and American Horse of the Year. Nonetheless, the Swaps debacle had left a sour taste in many mouths, and worse was to come. The Slew Crew and Billy Turner parted ways late in the year, with the public story being that the owners wanted to have Slew in the hands of a trainer working exclusively for them and not in a public stable. Only many years later was it revealed that the primary factor in the breakup was Turner’s having developed a serious drinking problem, which did not become public knowledge until Turner was forced into rehabilitation by a series of alcohol-related health problems in the early 1990s.

Doug Peterson was hired as Turner’s replacement, but before Slew could make his first start for his new trainer, the colt went down with an infection that for several days appeared life-threatening. Although he pulled through, it was two weeks from the initial signs of sickness before the colt was well enough to begin walking the shedrow. By that time, a Florida campaign was out of the question, and many observers wondered if the colt would simply retire to stud rather than going through the rehabilitation needed to return to racing. After all, the colt had been syndicated for a record $12 million in mid-February; he did not need to do anything else to enhance his value.

The Slew Crew had already considered the options, however. Seattle Slew could have retired to stud, but it was already too late in the season to guarantee him a full book of top mares. Further, his reputation had been tarnished by the loss at Hollywood Park, and nobody really wanted his career to end on that sour note.

Slew made his 1978 debut in a seven-furlong allowance race at Aqueduct on May 14. Nerves were high for both the Slew Crew and for Doug Peterson, but Slew delivered beautifully with an eight and one-half length victory. He ran the distance in a brisk 1:22-4/5 over the sloppy track and seemed completely back to his old self. But a planned start in the Metropolitan Handicap (gr. I) had to be scrapped because of another stall injury similar to the one that had delayed the colt’s debut as a juvenile, and that brought the doubters back out in force. If they were not doubting Slew himself, they were doubting the ability of Peterson and the Slew Crew to manage the horse properly.

It was up to Slew himself to answer the doubters, but he did not return to the track until August 12, when he demolished another allowance field at Saratoga. The time for seven furlongs on a sloppy track was 1:21-3/4 with Slew in hand all the way. Then Slew shipped to the Meadowlands for the nine-furlong Paterson Handicap. Under topweight of 128 pounds, Seattle Slew set brisk early fractions but got leg-weary while racing along the rail, where the surface was dull and tiring. Angel Cordero, Jr., who had the mount on Dr. Patches, knew all about the Meadowlands surface, and he angled his mount to the outside for the drive. Under 114 pounds, fourteen less than Slew carried, Dr. Patches just got up to beat the champion by a neck. The loss got the usual bad reviews in the racing media, but Dr. Patches was not precisely an ordinary opponent; he ended the year by being named co-champion American sprinter with J. O. Tobin.

Cruguet chose the aftermath of the race to express not only his lack of faith in Slew himself but his lack of faith in the horse’s new trainer. His outburst led to his replacement by none other than Cordero, who had admired the colt ever since watching Slew roar by him in the Kentucky Derby. The horse and rider were well matched: both were aggressive types who loved speed and liked nothing better than to control a race from the front end.

The new team made its debut in the Marlboro Cup (gr. I), which in 1978 enjoyed a special cachet as the first race ever to stage a matchup between winners of the Triple Crown. Affirmed, the 1978 Triple Crown winner, was entered and was the favorite, making it the first time in Slew’s career that he had not been the bettors’ choice. Slew soon showed his deserters the error of their ways, for he hustled out of the gate to the early lead and never looked back. Not only did he defeat Affirmed by three lengths, but his time of 1:45-4/5 missed Secretariat’s world record by only two-fifths of a second. The champion’s next race was the ten-furlong Woodward Stakes (gr. I), and he made it look easy, winning by four lengths over Exceller in two minutes flat.

Affirmed was not in the field for the Woodward, but he was back for another crack at Seattle Slew in the Jockey Club Gold Cup (gr. I). Also in the field was Exceller, who had racked up four grade I victories in 1978 prior to meeting Slew in the Woodward, and Life’s Hope, winner of the 1978 Amory L. Haskell Handicap (gr. I) but primarily in the race to serve as a pacemaker for Affirmed.. The strategy for the Harbor View entry was obvious: Life’s Hope, the “rabbit” of the pair, would try to cook Slew by carrying him through suicidal fractions, leaving the way clear for Affirmed to make a winning stretch drive.

As it turned out, Life’s Hope was not really a factor in the race, but Affirmed was – as an unintentional “rabbit” for Exceller. Ordinarily amenable to rating by his regular jockey, Steve Cauthen, Affirmed could not be restrained this time and rushed up into a duel with Seattle Slew, who as usual had grabbed the early lead. The two raced through fractions of :22-3/5 for the first quarter, :45-1/5 for the half mile, and 1:09-2/5 for six furlongs, a pace far too fast to last a mile and a half – especially over a sloppy track.

After seven furlongs, Affirmed was done; it would later be learned that his saddle had slipped, robbing Cauthen of the ability to control the colt. Slew raced on through a mile in 1:35-2/5, but now Exceller was on the move from some ten lengths back. By the quarter pole he had caught up to Slew and appeared ready to sail on by; he had a half-length lead at the stretch call. But there was no quit in Seattle Slew. Digging in with everything he had, he grimly cut the margin inch by inch through the final few hundred yards until the two horses flashed under the wire in an apparent deadlock. It took the photo finish camera to separate the pair and declare that Exceller had won the Jockey Club Gold Cup by the barest of noses.

The hooplah that surrounded Seattle Slew after the Gold Cup was perhaps not fair to Exceller, who after all had won the race with a superb effort of his own. But there was no question that Slew had passed the acid test of a champion – heart. Never again could it be said of him that he was simply “the best of a bad lot”; he had proven that he had the speed, courage, and stamina to run with the best of the best.

Slew made his final start in the Stuyvesant Handicap (gr. III) at Aqueduct on November 11. The field was nowhere near as distinguished as in his previous three starts, so to even things up a bit, the New York Racing Association Tommy Trotter loaded Slew up with 134 pounds. It made not the slightest difference to the colt’s hapless rivals; Slew won “ridden out” by three and one-quarter lengths while conceding nineteen pounds to runner-up Jumping Hill and twenty-one pounds to third-place Wise Philip, both graded stakes winners.

In a close vote, Seattle Slew beat out Exceller for the Eclipse Award as the champion older male. Though he could not quite beat out Affirmed for the Horse of the Year award despite having beaten him twice, he had done more than enough to redeem his name from the shocking defeat in the Swaps Stakes and had, indeed, added new luster to it. He retired with fourteen wins and two seconds from seventeen starts for earnings of $1,208,726. His record earned him induction into the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame in 1981.

Slew retired to Spendthrift Farm on November 30, 1978, a date proclaimed “Seattle Slew Day” by Kentucky governor Julian Carroll. He began his new job the next spring, and though a somewhat reluctant lover at first, warmed to his new duties after the first year or two. He retained one quirk that sometimes drove his handlers crazy, however: he was choosy about his mates’ colors, sometimes preferring chestnuts and sometimes bays and acting reluctant to cover a mare who wasn’t his “color of the day.” When all else failed, a gray mare – a color Slew really liked – was sometimes brought in to tease the stallion before being switched out for the mare he was actually to breed.

Slew’s first foals were born in 1980, and it became apparent when they hit the track that he was going to make a sire. His first stakes winner was the brilliant Landaluce, who went unbeaten in five races, four of them stakes, before dying of a sudden illness in November. She was posthumously named champion juvenile filly, and the crop contained another top juvenile in Slewpy, winner of the Young America Stakes (gr. I). As a three-year-old, he won the Meadowlands Cup Handicap (gr. I) but yielded place as star of the crop to the later-developing Slew o’ Gold, a two-time winner of both the Jockey Club Gold Cup (gr. I) and the Woodward Stakes (gr. I) and a champion at both three and four.

Slew’s second crop included Swale, who like Landaluce was destined for both brilliance and tragedy. After emulating Slewpy with a win in the Young America Stakes (gr. I) at two, Swale earned championship honors with wins in the Florida Derby (gr. I), Kentucky Derby, and Belmont Stakes at three but collapsed and died just a few days after the latter race. Based in large part on the championship seasons of Swale and Slew o’Gold (who might have added Horse of the Year honors to his trophy as champion older male had he won the inaugural Breeders’ Cup Classic), Seattle Slew was the leading American sire of 1984.

Spendthrift, alas, ran into financial and legal problems during the 1980s, and 1986 saw Slew moving to Three Chimneys Farm near Midway, Kentucky, where he joined his son Slew o’ Gold on the stallion roster. Slew continued to sire top horses throughout his stud career, but to date, the most important of his champions appears to be A.P. Indy. American Horse of the Year and champion three-year-old male in 1992, A.P. Indy has assumed his sire’s mantle at stud and appears to have ensured the survival of Seattle Slew’s male line through the first part of the twenty-first century. Other sons of Seattle Slew stand throughout the world, and rightly or wrongly, he has the reputation of being one of the most important sires of sires of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. Slew’s daughters have also proved worthy as producers, making their sire the leading American broodmare sire of 1995 and 1996.

Seattle Slew died on May 7. 2002, twenty-five years to the day after his Kentucky Derby victory. But his legacy lives on. Not until Smarty Jones in 2004 was another colt to win the Derby and Preakness while still unbeaten, and Seattle Slew still stands alone as the only horse to compete the Triple Crown without a blemish on his record. Had he done no more, that would have been enough to ensure racing immortality.

Text © 2005 by Avalyn Hunter

Artwork © 2005 by Pat DeLong. Used by permission and may not be copied or distributed without the express consent of Pat DeLong. For information regarding purchases, reproductions, or licensing, please contact Pat DeLong at patdelongart@aol.com.