Seattle Slew, Second Race, Belmont Allowance 1976

Seven furlongs, 15 days after Seattle Slew's maiden win. Slew wins in :22 3/5, :45 4/5, 1:22 flat, and riden out a mile in 1:35 1/5 in preparation for the Champagne, 11 days later.

Notice the strange silks. They are NYRA house silks, solid blue with a black X. Slew's owners, Karen and Mickey Taylor, did not attend this race due to important timber sales in the Pacific Northwest, and the NYRA unbelievably could not find their silks.

Apparently there was a significant anti-rail bias at Belmont in 1976. Famed trainer Leroy Jolley said he only saw two horses overcome it. Again, I recommend the full write up on this race at the excellent website Seattle Slew dot com. This was Jolley's summary. He was so impressed with this effort he tried to buy Slew after the race.

"Sure the Flamingo was a big race," Jolley said at the time, "but to me the biggest race he ever ran was the non-winners of two allowance.

"The inside at Belmont is impossible. Nobody wins cutting the corner, not on any level. I only remember two horses winning on the inside at Belmont the whole year. One was Elliott Burch's filly, Ivory Wand, and she did it twice-which shows you what kind of runner she is. The other one was Seattle Slew.

"He had the No. 1 box to begin with, and then he got flat left (at the break). All he did was make the lead, on the inside, in an eighth-mile, and go right on to win easily. He never left the rail. I didn't see a more impressive performance all year."

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• Seattle
• Slew
• Belmont
• Allowance
• 1976
• Second
• Race
• Karen
• Mickey
• Taylor
• Leroy
• Jolley
• Jean
• Cruguet
• Billy
• Turner
• Silks

[Jazzgirl8888]

What a powerful horse!

Thank you so much for posting this race!

[cf1970]

Very impressive effort by Slew.

Thank you for posting this and for the great insight as well.

[gotch09]

This announcer ain't no Chic Anderson! He stinks.

[horselovur]

My horse is Seattle Slew's Grandson