Archive for the 'racehorses' Category

Seattle Slew: a Famous Horse in His Time

Horses - Seattle Slew

Tip! Self Discipline - Horses take a lot of time and work, so your child will have to be dedicated to learning how to ride and handle horses effectively. I have found that dedication is rarely something that children lacks when it comes to horses.

In the short list of triple crown winners, this horse had to be one of the biggest bargains in racing history. We’re referring to the puzzle of a wonder, Seattle Slew.

The story of this horse is just another reminder of how weird the sport of horse racing can be and how unpredictable it can also be. All over the racing industry millionaires were spending small fortunes trying to breed the best horses they could in the hopes of coming away with a winner. While this mad spending was going on a few friends got together and spent $17,500 to buy Seattle Slew when he was just one year old. You wouldn’t think that kind of money would get you much of anything. But these friends saw their investment go on to become a triple crown winner and also go on to be one of the greatest horses in the 20th century.

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Seattle Slew was the son of Bold Reasoning.

Again, once Seattle Slew hit three years of age, his trainer took things slow with him, not starting him in his first race as a three year old until March 9, 1977. That race was in Hialeah where he won by nine lengths. On March 26 he then won again at the Flamingo Stakes by four lengths.

Finally, he won the Wood Memorial Stakes on April 23 by 3 and 1/4 lengths.ng and My Charmer. The horse was brought along very slowly in his career by a young trainer named

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William H. Turner. He was the oldest horse in history to make his two year old maiden race which was on September 20, 1976 at Belmont Park. Out of twelve horses in the field, he went off as a 2.6 to 1 favorite. He took the lead quickly and won the race by five lengths.

Tip! Learn Patience - Horses are like children themselves, and training a horse is much like teaching a child. When your child has become a confident and skilled rider, letting them help train a horse will be an excellent experience for them.

Oddly, Seattle Slew started just two more races as a two year old. He won an allowance race on October 5 and then won the Champagne Stakes eleven days later by a whopping 9 and 3/4 lengths. After that race people were already talking about whether or not he would be the next triple crown winner in just 4 years since Secretariat in 1973.

By the time the Kentucky Derby came around on May 7, because of his past performances, Seattle Slew was the overwhelming favorite to win going off at 1 to 2. Ironically, the race was nearly a disaster for Slew when he swerved and was sharply taken by the jockey. He was allowed to take an early lead because of this but that resulted in him tiring down the stretch that became a 3 horse race. Slew did manage to hang on and win by 1 and 3/4 lengths.

At the Preakness, two weeks later, things were very similar to the Derby as Slew was involved in a real horse race but managed to hang on to win by 1 and 1/2 lengths. At this time people were starting to worry that he would fall short in the Belmont. But Slew didn’t disappoint. The Belmont was a completely different story and Slew went on to win by four lengths.

The victory made him not only the 10th triple crown winner but the first undefeated triple crown winner. Slew finally retired at the end of the 1978 season.

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 Michael Russell
 Your Independent guide to Horses
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Citation: A Famous Racehorse

Horses - Citation

Tip! Learn Trust - Horses must be able to trust their handlers. One of the first things that your child will learn about handling and riding horses is to be trustworthy and dependable, because if the horse doesn’t trust its handler it will not obey him/her.

In this article we’re going to briefly go over the career of one of the most famous horses in racing history, Citation.

If you look past the losses that Citation sustained at the end of his career, this has to have been one of the greatest horses in racing history if you simply look at his accomplishments. Citation was a horse that was not only blessed with blinding speed but with great staying power. The horse just never tired. Add to that a killer instinct that literally willed him past the other horses and this horse was almost unbeatable until he just got too old to do it anymore.

Over the course of Citation’s career there were many changes. After the patriarch of Calumet Farms, Warren Wright, died, trainer Ben Jones started to hand over more responsibility of handling Citation to his son Jimmy. He ultimately took this horse to a place where no other horse had been to that time; retiring as a millionaire in 1951. Unfortunately, the losses he sustained in the last 2 years of his career greatly diminished what he had accomplished in the eyes of others.

The truth is, racing was never easy for Citation in spite of his natural talent. Injuries kept him completely out of the 1949 racing season. To compound matters, Warren Wright’s dying wish that Citation retire a millionaire kept this horse racing into his sixth year when most other horses would have already been long retired. In spite of all this, Citation somehow managed to shake off the defeats late in his career and win his final three races, something nobody expected him to be able to do. His final victory was the Hollywood Gold Cup, which was the race that put him over the million dollar earnings bracket, the only horse to ever reach this plateau.

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Warren Wright was actually more responsible for the great horse that Citation became than anyone realizes. It was his choosing to breed Bull Lea, a less than successful triple crown winner, and Hydroplane II, a horse he purchased from Lord Derby in the spring of 1941. Obviously, this pairing was a work of pure genius on Wright’s part.

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Citation’s career began in 1945 with great fanfare. By the time he reached his 3 year old season in 1947 he was honored as racing’s Horse Of The Year. That year he won the Flamingo Stakes and Everglades Handicap and he was on a seven race winning streak.

But the pinnacle of that year was when Citation won the triple crown, winning the Kentucky Derby by 3 1/2 lengths, the Preakness by 5 1/2 lengths and the Belmont Stakes by an amazing 11 lengths. With that victory, Citation became racing’s 8th triple crown winner.

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But he wasn’t through. Citation won 9 more starts in 1948. By the time his 3 year old career had ended Citation had won 27 races and came in 2nd twice in 29 races.

Citation died on August 8, 1970, at the age of 25. He was truly one of the greatest.

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 Michael Russell
 Your Independent guide to Horses
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