Last updated: June 12, 2026
Who was Seattle Slew? Seattle Slew (1974–2002) was an American Thoroughbred who became the 10th Triple Crown winner in 1977 and the first horse in history to win the Triple Crown while undefeated. Justify matched the feat in 2018, making them the only two undefeated Triple Crown winners among the 13 Triple Crown champions as of 2026. Key facts:
- Career record: 14 wins from 17 starts; $1,208,726 in earnings
- Purchased for $17,500 at the Fasig-Tipton yearling sale after being rejected by Keeneland
- 1977 Triple Crown: Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes, Belmont Stakes — all won without a prior loss
- Championships: Champion 2yo (1976), Champion 3yo (1977), Horse of the Year (1977), Champion Older Male (1978)
- As a sire: 111 stakes winners from 1,000+ foals; sired A.P. Indy, Swale, and Landaluce
- Hall of Fame: Inducted 1981; died May 7, 2002 — the 25th anniversary of his Kentucky Derby win
Seattle Slew was purchased for $17,500 by two couples who had never owned a racehorse before. The horse Keeneland’s sales committee rejected because of his awkward conformation and unproven pedigree went on to become the first undefeated Triple Crown winner in history. As a racehorse owner myself, that story never gets old. The $17,500 horse with the turned-out foot and the gangly walk became one of the most dominant racehorses America ever produced.
Table of Contents
Seattle Slew — Career at a Glance
| Category | Detail |
|---|---|
| Foaled | February 15, 1974 — White Horse Acres Farm, Lexington, Kentucky |
| Color | Dark bay or brown |
| Sire | Bold Reasoning (died April 24, 1975, produced only three crops) |
| Dam | My Charmer (stakes winner, by Poker) |
| Owners | Karen and Mickey Taylor; Jim and Sally Hill |
| Trainer | Billy Turner (1976–77); Doug Peterson (1978) |
| Jockey | Jean Cruguet (Triple Crown); various in 1978 |
| Purchase price | $17,500 at Fasig-Tipton yearling sale, 1975 |
| Career record | 14 wins from 17 starts |
| Earnings | $1,208,726 |
| Major titles | Triple Crown (1977) — the 10th winner in history; Champion 2yo (1976); Champion 3yo (1977); Horse of the Year (1977); Champion Older Male (1978) |
| Hall of Fame | Inducted 1981 |
| Died | May 7, 2002 — age 28, 25th anniversary of his Kentucky Derby win |
The $17,500 Horse Nobody Wanted
Seattle Slew was foaled on February 15, 1974, at Ben Castleman’s White Horse Acres Farm in Lexington, Kentucky. His sire, Bold Reasoning, had died just a year earlier on April 24, 1975, after producing only three crops of foals — which made him commercially unproven at the time Seattle Slew was being offered for sale. His dam, My Charmer, was a stakes winner but by the obscure stallion Poker. Neither parent carried the kind of pedigree that made bloodstock agents excited.
When the Taylors and Hills tried to enter him in the prestigious Keeneland Select Yearling Sale, they were turned away. The auction rejected the colt because his sire was unproven, he had an awkward, clumsy way of moving, and his right front foot turned out. By Keeneland’s standards — and the standards of most serious buyers at the time — he wasn’t worth the entry.
So he went to the less prestigious Fasig-Tipton sale in Lexington with a $15,000 reserve. That day, two couples arrived together planning to buy their first yearling: Karen and Mickey Taylor, and Jim and Sally Hill. Mickey Taylor was a fourth-generation logger from Washington State; Jim Hill was a large animal veterinarian from New York. Before the bidding started, Jim Hill pointed out hip number 128, telling the group this horse looked special. They agreed to try for him and set a budget of $12,000.
The price climbed past their limit almost immediately. When Mickey Taylor started to hesitate, Karen Taylor delivered an elbow to his ribs and kept them in the bidding. They bought Seattle Slew for $17,500.
The Taylors sent him to trainer Billy Turner, a hard-drinking, wisecracking former steeplechase jockey whose personality was as distinctive as his training methods. When Seattle Slew arrived in the barn, the stable staff nicknamed him “Baby Huey” — a reference to the oversized, ungainly cartoon character — because of his large, awkward frame. The nickname stuck for a while. The ability didn’t take long to show itself.
How He Got His Name
Karen Taylor named the colt Seattle Slew. Seattle honored Mickey’s home state — the largest city in Washington, where he had spent his career as a logger. Slew was chosen as a homophone for “slough,” a type of waterway that loggers historically used to transport heavy logs downstream. The name was both geographic and personal — a working name for a working man’s horse.
Racing Career — The Road to the Triple Crown
Seattle Slew made his racing debut on September 20, 1976, at Belmont Park. He won his maiden race by five lengths as the 5-2 favorite — a convincing debut, but nothing that would have predicted what came next. He followed that with an allowance win by 3½ lengths, then produced a performance that announced him as the real thing: the Grade I Champagne Stakes, won by 9¾ lengths in a time that set a new stakes record. Three starts, three wins, each one more dominant than the last.
Those performances earned him the Champion Two-Year-Old title for 1976. When he returned as a three-year-old in 1977, he picked up where he left off. He won at Hialeah Park by nine lengths, setting a new track record for seven furlongs. He then won the Flamingo Stakes by four lengths and followed that with the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct, winning easily by just over three lengths without ever being challenged.
| Race | Year | Margin | Notable |
|---|---|---|---|
| Champagne Stakes (G1) | 1976 | 9¾ lengths | Set stakes record; clinched Champion 2yo title |
| Hialeah (allowance) | 1977 | 9 lengths | New track record at 7 furlongs |
| Flamingo Stakes | 1977 | 4 lengths | Key prep for Triple Crown trail |
| Wood Memorial | 1977 | 3+ lengths | Final prep race; never challenged |
| Kentucky Derby | 1977 | 1¾ lengths | Broke 9th, moved to 3rd on backstretch, led into stretch |
| Preakness Stakes | 1977 | 1½ lengths | Second leg of undefeated Triple Crown |
| Belmont Stakes | 1977 | 4 lengths | Completed the first undefeated Triple Crown in history (Justify matched the feat in 2018) |
| Marlboro Cup Championship | 1978 | 3 lengths | Beat Affirmed — only time two Triple Crown winners met in the same race |
| Woodward Stakes | 1978 | — | Part of his championship 4yo season |
| Jockey Club Gold Cup | 1978 | — | Major open-company stakes win |
| Stuyvesant Handicap | 1978 | — | Final career race; retired after win at Aqueduct |
The 1977 Triple Crown
By the time Seattle Slew arrived at Churchill Downs in May 1977, he had won all nine of his previous starts. He was the heavy favorite in a field of ten.
Kentucky Derby. He broke from post position nine — not ideal — and his connections watched as he pushed forward through the field, reaching third place on the backstretch. He took the lead entering the homestretch and pulled away to win by 1¾ lengths. He had now won ten consecutive races.
Preakness Stakes. Two weeks later at Pimlico, Seattle Slew went to the front early and controlled the race throughout. He won by 1½ lengths, making it eleven wins without a loss. The racing world had a potential Triple Crown winner on its hands for the first time since Secretariat in 1973.
Belmont Stakes. Three weeks later at Belmont Park, Seattle Slew completed the Triple Crown in his most dominant classic performance — winning by four lengths. He had gone wire to wire in the race that historically breaks horses. He was now undefeated in twelve starts and the tenth Triple Crown winner in American racing history — and the first to do so while undefeated — Justify would repeat the feat in 2018.
Seattle Slew remains one of only two undefeated Triple Crown winners in American racing history, alongside Justify (2018). No other horse in the sport’s history has entered each of the three classics with a perfect record and left with one.
His jockey through all three races was Jean Cruguet, a Frenchman whose career had largely stalled in the United States before Seattle Slew revived it. They won all three classics together, each race more commanding than the last.
What made the 1977 Triple Crown unique:
- Seattle Slew entered the Derby having won all nine of his previous starts
- He was the first horse in history to win the Triple Crown while remaining undefeated — Justify matched the feat in 2018, making them the only two
- His margin of victory in the Belmont (4 lengths) was his most dominant Triple Crown performance
- At the time of his Triple Crown, he was owned by first-time racehorse owners who had paid less for him than a new car
What Made Seattle Slew Different From Every Other Triple Crown Winner?
Seattle Slew’s dominance wasn’t accidental and it wasn’t purely about breeding. He had a specific combination of physical gifts and competitive temperament that was unusually difficult to replicate.
Front-running speed that didn’t fade. Most horses who go to the front early bleed speed in the final furlong. Seattle Slew could sprint to the lead, control the pace, and still accelerate when asked in the stretch. That combination — explosive early foot plus late reserve — is the mark of a genuinely special horse. His Champagne Stakes win at age two, by nearly ten lengths while setting a stakes record, showed it was already there before anyone knew what they had.
Unusual stride and athleticism. Despite being dismissed as clumsy and ungainly as a yearling, Seattle Slew developed a long, raking stride that covered ground efficiently. Billy Turner, whatever his conflicts with the owners, recognized it immediately when the horse arrived in his barn. “Baby Huey” stopped looking awkward the moment he started running.
Competitive temperament. Great racehorses typically want to race — not just to run, but to beat the horses around them. Seattle Slew showed that competitive instinct early. He was aggressive at the gate, forward in traffic, and he responded when challenged rather than backing off. That mentality didn’t diminish after the Triple Crown. His performances in 1978, including against Affirmed, showed a horse who had lost nothing mentally despite the turmoil around him.
Class over distance. He won major races from sprint distances to the 1½-mile Belmont Stakes. His sprint wins at seven furlongs carried the same authority as his Belmont performance at a mile and a half. Genuine class horses find a way to win regardless of the distance asked. Seattle Slew was that horse.
First Loss and the Turmoil That Followed
Seattle Slew’s first defeat came in the Swaps Stakes at Hollywood Park in July 1977. He finished fourth — not just beaten, but beaten decisively. The loss shocked the racing world and triggered an immediate conflict between the owners and trainer Billy Turner.
Turner had not wanted the horse to run. He had been vocal about his belief that Seattle Slew needed rest after the grueling Triple Crown campaign, and he made his concerns public. The owners disagreed, ran the horse, and when the result came back badly, the relationship fractured. After the 1977 season, Billy Turner was fired and replaced by Doug Peterson.
The turmoil wasn’t finished. Early in his four-year-old season, Seattle Slew developed a life-threatening form of anemia that sidelined him for months — a condition serious enough that his survival was genuinely in question. He recovered, but the episode demonstrated how close racing came to losing him before his best work was done.
The 1978 Comeback
After the Swaps Stakes loss, the trainer change, and a life-threatening anemia that sidelined him for months, Seattle Slew came back in 1978 under Doug Peterson and produced a season that removed any doubt about whether his Triple Crown had been a fluke. He won the Woodward Stakes and the Jockey Club Gold Cup. He was named Champion Older Male — a fourth championship in three seasons. Cruguet, his Triple Crown jockey, was fired during the 1978 campaign after publicly criticizing Seattle Slew’s condition following a loss.
Seattle Slew vs. Affirmed — Two Triple Crown Winners, One Race
The centerpiece of the 1978 season was the Marlboro Cup Championship — a race most modern fans don’t know about, but one that racing historians rank among the most significant ever run. Seattle Slew, the 1977 Triple Crown winner, met Affirmed, the 1978 Triple Crown winner, in open competition. It was the only time in American racing history that two Triple Crown champions have faced each other in a race.
Seattle Slew won by three lengths. Affirmed, who had defeated the brilliant Alydar three times in succession to win the 1978 Triple Crown, had no answer for Seattle Slew that day. The result strengthened Seattle Slew’s claim among those who believed he was the superior horse — though racing historians still debate the question. What isn’t debated is that Seattle Slew’s Marlboro Cup win stands as one of the most significant results of the era.
His final career record: 14 wins from 17 starts. His three losses were the Swaps Stakes (4th place), a second-place finish by a neck, and a third-place finish by a nose. He retired with $1,208,726 in earnings.
Miles’s Take — what Seattle Slew’s story means for owners: The part of this story I find most compelling isn’t the Triple Crown. It’s the yearling sale. Keeneland turned him away. Two couples who’d never owned a racehorse trusted their eye — specifically Jim Hill’s eye — and spent $17,500 at a secondary auction on a colt with a bad foot and an unproven sire. That’s the kind of decision most experienced people would talk themselves out of.
The lessons here are real: great horses don’t always look great as yearlings; pedigrees can surprise you when the right genetics combine unexpectedly; and sometimes the horse the market rejects is the one worth watching. That doesn’t mean every cheap horse at a secondary auction is Seattle Slew. It means that if you’re evaluating horses at the claiming or yearling level, don’t let other people’s rejections do your thinking for you. The market is wrong sometimes. Keeneland’s experts passed on Seattle Slew. Jim Hill trusted what he saw. That’s a lesson every horse buyer should remember — pedigree matters, but athleticism and competitive character matter more.
Legacy as a Sire
Seattle Slew wasn’t just a great racehorse — he became one of the most influential stallions of the modern era. His son A.P. Indy reshaped American breeding, and his bloodline still runs through elite horses today. He was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1981, and he stood at stud until his death in 2002.
From over 1,000 foals, he produced 111 stakes winners who earned more than $75 million in prize money combined. His most famous son was A.P. Indy, the 1992 Horse of the Year, who became one of the most commercially dominant sires in American racing history in his own right — making Seattle Slew influential not just through racing but through the next generation of breeding stallions. He also sired Swale, the 1984 Kentucky Derby winner, and Landaluce, the 1982 Champion Two-Year-Old filly. Seattle Slew was named Leading Sire in North America in 1984 and North American Leading Broodmare Sire in both 1995 and 1996.
The Slew line’s commercial reach extends deep into the 21st century. Tapit — by Pulpit, by A.P. Indy — makes Seattle Slew his paternal great-grandsire through the direct sire line, and is one of the most commercially dominant stallions of the modern era with a peak stud fee of $300,000. The Slew line runs directly through the sire chain to some of the most influential horses in 21st-century American breeding. More than fifty years after Keeneland turned him away as a yearling, Seattle Slew’s bloodline remains at the top of the American pedigree market.
He died on May 7, 2002, at age 28, from a coronary thrombosis while sleeping at the Taylor farm. It was the 25th anniversary of his Kentucky Derby win.
Key Takeaways: Seattle Slew
- The first undefeated Triple Crown winner. Of 13 Triple Crown winners, only Seattle Slew (1977) and Justify (2018) accomplished the feat without losing a race beforehand
- Purchased for $17,500 after Keeneland rejected him — by first-time owners at a secondary auction. The horse turned out to be the most valuable $17,500 ever spent on a yearling
- Career record: 14 wins from 17 starts — his three losses were a 4th place (Swaps), a neck, and a nose. Never bad, rarely beaten
- Four championship titles across three seasons: Champion 2yo (1976), Champion 3yo and Horse of the Year (1977), Champion Older Male (1978)
- Beat Affirmed in the 1978 Marlboro Cup — the only race in history between two Triple Crown winners; he won by three lengths
- 111 stakes winners from 1,000+ foals as a sire — A.P. Indy, Swale, and Landaluce among his most famous offspring; his bloodline runs through Tapit and the dominant strains of modern American breeding
- Died on the 25th anniversary of his Kentucky Derby win, May 7, 2002, at age 28
Frequently Asked Questions
Was Seattle Slew ever beaten?
Yes — Seattle Slew lost three races in his 17-start career. His worst finish was fourth in the Swaps Stakes in 1977. His other two losses were by a neck and a nose. He ended his career with 14 wins and remains one of the most dominant horses in American racing history.
What killed Seattle Slew?
Seattle Slew died on May 7, 2002, at age 28, from a coronary thrombosis — a blood clot in the heart — while sleeping at the Taylor farm in Lexington, Kentucky. He passed away with his longtime owners Karen and Mickey Taylor by his side. The date was the 25th anniversary of his 1977 Kentucky Derby victory.
Why was Seattle Slew rejected by Keeneland?
Keeneland’s Select Yearling Sale turned Seattle Slew away because his sire (Bold Reasoning) was commercially unproven at the time, he had an awkward, clumsy way of moving, and his right front foot turned out. He was subsequently sold at the Fasig-Tipton secondary sale for $17,500 to two couples who had never owned a racehorse.
Who were Seattle Slew’s owners?
Seattle Slew was owned by Karen and Mickey Taylor and Jim and Sally Hill. Mickey Taylor was a fourth-generation logger from Washington State; Jim Hill was a large animal veterinarian from New York. It was the first racehorse either couple had ever owned. They purchased him together for $17,500 at the 1975 Fasig-Tipton yearling sale.
Who was Seattle Slew’s jockey?
Jean Cruguet rode Seattle Slew through the 1977 Triple Crown. Cruguet was a French jockey whose career had largely stalled in the United States before Seattle Slew revived it. He was later fired during the 1978 season after publicly criticizing Seattle Slew’s condition following a loss.
What is Seattle Slew’s racing legacy?
Seattle Slew is remembered as the first Triple Crown winner to accomplish the feat while undefeated — a distinction later shared by Justify in 2018 — the winner of four championship titles across three seasons, and one of the most influential sires in American Thoroughbred history. His son A.P. Indy became a dominant commercial stallion, and the Slew line runs through many of the most important pedigrees in modern American breeding, including through Tapit.
How did Seattle Slew get his name?
Seattle Slew was named by Karen Taylor. Seattle honored Mickey Taylor’s home state of Washington, where he had worked as a logger. Slew was chosen as a homophone for ‘slough’ — a type of waterway that loggers historically used to transport heavy logs. The name combined geography and occupation in a way that reflected exactly who the owners were.
About Miles Henry
Racehorse Owner & Author | 30+ Years in Thoroughbred Racing
Miles Henry (legal name: William Bradley) is a professional horseman based in Folsom, Louisiana. He holds Louisiana Racing License #67012 and has spent over three decades managing Thoroughbreds at premier tracks including Fair Grounds, Delta Downs, and Evangeline Downs.
Expertise & Hands-On Experience: Beyond the track, Miles has decades of experience in specialized equine care, covering everything from hoof health and nutrition to training protocols for Quarter Horses, Friesians, and Paints. Every guide on Horse Racing Sense is rooted in this “boots-on-the-ground” perspective.
30 of their last 90 starts
Equibase Profile.
Connect with Miles: