The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page 14

the jockeys Happy Cruguet says Seattle Slew to win Preakness WiaTW7, Tftfvy 4 pn jb LS s'' tfw 'Pf fe Jf y. ii iff? I mPh te 1 striding colt, but some estimates were as high as 11. The official race chart showed Seattle Slew went after the leaders early, forcing his way between Flag Officer and Affiliate. Seattle Slew then battled For The Moment in a duel for the lead outside the stretch. He disposed of For The Moment and closed strongly to wrap up the victory.

When Jorge Velasquez arrived in the jockey quarters, someone asked him if there had ever been a time during the race when he thought his mount, Sanhe-drin, from Darby Dan Farm, might win. Velasquez confessed that he thought Sanhedrin might win when he moved into third position. Cruguet had been subjected to some criticism in early efforts although he was winning. But he was praised by Mickey Taylor, husband of Seattle Slew's owner, Karen Taylor. "I thought Cruguet rode a very cool race," said Taylor.

The time of the race was nothing sensational, 2:02 15 as against the Derby record of 1:59 25, set four years ago by Secretariat. Cruguet was asked if he could have gone faster. "Gee, I don't know," he responded. The margin by Seattle Slew was the slimmest of his career. He finished 1 34 lengths ahead of Run Dusty Run, who was a neck in front of Sanhedrin.

Cruguet managed a chuckle when asked about the Triple Crown. "All I can guarantee is he'll win next By MARVIN N. GAY Jr. Couritr-jourml 4 Tlmti Stiff Writir Jockey Jean Cruguet was all smiles after riding Seattle Slew to victory yesterday at Churchill Downs. Cruguet and Seattle Slew were tested in the 1 14-mile Kentucky Derby and were up to the task.

"I was confident before the race and I was confident during the race," Cruguet said. "To me, he won't get beat. Not in the Preakness anyway." The Preakness is the second leg of the Triple Crown races for three-year-olds. The May 21 race at Pimlico at a mile and 316 is slightly shorter than the Derby. Seattle Slew was slow coming out of the gate yesterday.

"When we are in it too long, this colt doesn't break too well," Cruguet said. "He was nervous, but he settled down during the race. "I tried to go by For The Moment," said Cruguet. "I went between two horses. I wasn't sure just which two horses they were." Pausing a moment to catch his breath, Cruguet said, "I clucked to Seattle Slew a couple of times and he started running better." Asked when he first hit Seattle Slew in the race, Cruguet said, "It was coming for home." The jockey wasn't sure how many times he used the whip on the long- Staff Photo by Jay Mather owners of Seattle Slew, walk from the winners circle.

At right is the groom. Cruguet has handled Seattle Slew throughout his career even though the jockey broke his shoulder in Florida this past winter and it appeared he would not be ready to ride Seattle Slew in events leading to the Triple Crown. "This was a colt I wasn't going to let get away, though," said Cruguet. Cruguet, by the way, gets support in his career from his wife, Denise. She is a rider and trainer.

Those who also ran were up 'against Karen and Mickey Taylor, the time," said Cruguet. "Anybody has to be lucky to ride a horse like Seattle Slew, but I've worked hard. "I guess if he runs long enough, he might get beat. But regardless he's a great one." Cruguet hasn't always been as fortunate as he has been recently. He has had his share of disappointments.

The 37-year-old native of France was the regular rider of Hoist the Flag in 1971 and appeared to have the Triple All-time champion jockey Bill Shoemaker also commented that the final time of 2:02 15 was "slow." He said that although he brought Get the Axe under the wire fourth in the 15-horse field, some 5 14 lengths back of the winner, he just "didn't have enough horse" to register his fourth Derby triumph. "He run a good race, though," he said. "He beat 'em all except three." Valasquez said of his foul claim that Sanhedrin and Run Dusty Run "never made contact, but he intimidated me from the outside." Did that cost Sanhedrin any ground? "Yes, he slowed down completely," Velasquez said. "If he hadn't been forced so close to the rail, he would have been right there with the winner. He was intimidated the last sixteenth (of a mile)." The jockey who thought his horse encountered the most trouble was Ruben Hernandez, who piloted fifth-place Steve's Friend.

"He could have been up there, but he got stopped on the first turn when Pape- Crown at his mercy. But disaster struck. Hoist the Flag suffered a broken leg in training and was saved only for breeding purposes. A year later Cruguet was back in France and was the regular jockey for the top filly, San San. Then Cruguet was injured and Freddie Head rode San San to victory in France's leading race.

Afterward, Cruguet returned to the United States to race in this country again. lote came in and we had to go around horses," Hernandez said. "Then, turning for home, after he had moved to fourth on the turn, he jumped a spot of water. When he got to the ground again I think he hurt himself. "When I seen the half-mile pole, he was running easy.

I thought I had a shot." Angel Cordero whose victory aboard Bold Forbes last year was his second in a Derby, thought his 1977 mount, For The Moment, proved himself game in going almost head-and-head with Seattle Slew to the quarter pole. He called the winner "the best 3-year-old in America" but said, "Maybe it could be a different story on a different track with sharper turns, like for the Preakness (May 21 at Pimlico)," In a jovial mood despite winding up eighth on the Blue Grass Stakes winner, Cordero was more concerned about the results of the Carter Handicap in New York than discussing the Derby. When newsmen were unable to tell the best' him the winners of the split Carter, he said kiddingly, "You newspapermen no do your jobs." He then turned to a jockey agent and said, "You know. Who win in New York?" When the agent said, "I have no idea," Cordero threw up his hands, grinned and strode into the shower room. Laffit Pincay on ninth-place Affiliate, said his colt didn't break sharply "and then the horses in front of me just kept taking back and I lost any position I might have had early.

He made a good run around the turn and I thought I rqight have a chance, but then he got tired." Ron Turcotte said Western Wind "ran terrible" in winding up 14th, beating only Best Person. "He didn't run a lick. He's a much better horse than he showed," said Turcotte, who has won two Derbies. Best Person's rider, Garth Patterson, said he didn't use his colt enough early to give him reason to quit. "But he did," Patterson said.

"He quit trying at the quarter pole." Hon rnoto O) they near the home stretch. Staff Photo by Carl Roinbolt of 1973 Triple Crown champion Secretariat. "Well, he's done everything right," McHargue answered. "But Secretariat did everything right and broke records doing it. This horse, 1 think, is just a superior 3-year-old." McHargue said he realized that the early pace was brisk when he saw that Run Dusty Run's entrymate, Bob's Dusty, wasn't pressing the leaders, For The Moment and Seattle Slew.

"I knew if Bob's Dusty wasn't up there (he was running third at the time) they had to be setting a pretty fair pace," he said. "They went the first six furlongs in 1:10 and change, didn't they? "But the last part was slow. The first part was fast and the last part was slow." Reminded that Seattle Slew didn't come out of the gate very well, McHargue said he wasn't surprised. "I've seen a lot of other races where he really a gate horse," he said. "He breaks a little slowly.

But, like Mr. Turner (Seattle Slew's trainer, Billy Turner) said, he overcomes it." Seattle Slew makes the move By BOB ADAIR Courlir-Journal Tlm Staff Writer "He showed his stuff. We said all the way he had a chance for the roses, and I don't think he let us down." Jockey Darrel McHargue was speaking of Run Dusty Run, beaten less than two lengths by the 1-2 favorite, Seattle Slew, in the 103rd Kentucky Derby yesterday at Churchill Downs. "Today, he run against the best," the Oklahoma rider added. McHargue was philosophical, rather than disappointed.

In fact, there was much good humor, and smiles were plentiful among the jockeys whose mounts were left in the wake of undefeated Seattle Slew once Jean Cruguet asked the winner for his best in the long stretch run. Jorge Velasquez, who brought Sanhedrin home third, a neck back of Run Dusty Run, and then claimed foul against McHargue, was in high spirits although his claim was disallowed. "I'm happy," the veteran Panamanian jockey said. "He run a good race and I can't complain. I'm very satisfied." Just then, Cruguet entered the jockey quarters, mobbed by reporters.

At that precise moment, someone asked Velasquez if there had ever been a time during the mile-and-a-quarter run when he thought Sanhedrin might win. "Sure," he said. "When he moved up to third in the stretch, I thought he would win it." "Yeah, he thought so, but he didn't," Cruguet chided, breaking away from newsmen and heading for the showers. "I getcha, I getcha!" exclaimed the smiling Velasquez. "I getcha in the Belmont Stakes!" The Belmont on June 11 is a quarter of a mile longer than the Derby, and Sanhedrin's trainer, Lou Rondinello, predicted after the Darby Dan Farm colt's second to Seattle Slew in the Wood Memorial on April 23 that the Belmont would be Sanhedrin's "alley." McHargue, too, envisioned victory in the stretch yesterday when Run Dusty Run moved up from fourth to second.

"At the head of the stretch I really hadn't asked him to run," McHargue said. "I thought when he drew within a couple of lengths of Seattle Slew and For The Moment that if my horse ever had a chance it was there. At the eighth pole I thought, 'Boy, it's my I knew if the winner tired any it was my race." Was he terribly disappointed? "You never like to lose," McHargue answered. "But he had his shot. It took the best to beat him.

Barring the first horse, my horse probably is the best horse in the country that is, up to a mile and three-sixteenths at least." Someone asked if McHargue considers Seattle Slew a superhorse or the equal that made him a winner in yesterday's Kentucky Derby, passing For The Moment as.