The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page 20

the columnists Seattle Slew brings Taylors into the club Earlier, in the press box, some of the 1,400 reporters here to record the history of the day, asked Taylor his reaction. "My reaction to what?" he said. "It was a great day. We expected to have it a little bit smoother than we got, but that's all. Jean had a little bit of adversity at the start, but he came on and won.

Boy, we're happy." "He hasn't been known as the quickest breaker in the world," Karen Taylor said. "So I wasn't worried." She smiled. A white-lie smile. "I was worried the whole race." "Not the Derby. It's wonderful that we won it.

But the most important thing was having a 3-year-old champion." The Taylors are on their way. Yesterday's win was the fourth of the year for Seattle Slew, and if it set White Swan, to dancing a city jig about 85 of Mickey and Karen's relatives came here for the race it also set Mickey Taylor to pondering the future. "If he's gonna get beat, it's going to be when going short," he said. "His best lick when he gets settled down is going to be a mile and a quarter. Or maybe longer.

If he comes out of this race okay, he's going to be tough." In the board room at Churchill Downs, Karen L. Taylor made small talk with the famous, the rich and the beautiful. Jim Nabors, the singer and television actor known for his role as Gomer Pyle, introduced himself. "I bet $5 on you myself," he whispered. Gollee.

But mostly, at 6:30 p.m. last evening, Karen Taylor was surrounded by horse people, the people who own the land, the barns and the stock between the miles of white fences in Lexington, Maryland and Florida. When they shook her hand and congratulated her they also said, symbolically, "Welcome to the club." "I'm in the company here of people who have been in racing for 50 and CO years," she said. She spoke as if in awe, as if she couldn't quite believe it. "I'm a rank beginner.

I've just broken my maiden." Karen Taylor laughed. She is 32, and just a few years ago, she was an airline stewardess, walking up and down the aisles, serving drinks and putting pillows behind the heads of the famous, the rich and the beautiful. Yesterday, before 124,038 fans at Churchill Downs and yet-uncounted millions on television, she became the owner of a Kentucky Derby winner. His name is Seattle Slew, and it wasn't unexpected. A lot of people bet a total of $1,059,207 that he would do it just as he had done it in the first six races of his two-year racing career.

He won by a length and three-quarters finally, but only after he was challenged for the first time in his life, and after a start that would have turned other horses into trembling also-rans. "He spotted people coming out of the gate three or four lengths," Mickey Taylor said. "That's a handicap. He was in traffic everything like that. But that's what we've been trying to tell people all along.

Seattle Slew is calm and collected. He's an athlete." Mickey and Karen Taylor not poor folks, exactly, but not by Rockefeller out of Vanderbilt, either bought their first two horses, two $15,000 fillies, in the fall of 1973. They ran their first horse in a race in December of 1973. Yesterday they won the most famous race in the world. A descendant of Bold Ruler did it, a dark brown colt by Bold Reasoning that the Taylors bought for $17,500 in Lexington two years ago.

When Seattle Slew won, the state of Washington danced a jig and Dr. Jim Hill said, "I told you so." Or at least, he could have. It was on Jim Hill's advice "If that isn't a runner, my name isn't Jim Hill," he said that the Taylors plunked down the money at the Fasig-Tipton Sale. It was money that Taylor made on a coup in the family lumber business. Yesterday, with the sun setting on the 103rd Kentucky Derby, Taylor couldn't help thinking a little bit about the gamble.

"My father-in-law is a tax man," he said. "When we got into this, he outlined a tax plan and he said, 'This system isn't going to work worth a if you don't make I think Slew is working that out all right." Going into the Derby Slew had earned $255,340. He made $214,700 yesterday. He will be favored to make more in the Preakness, and probably in the Belmont. Mickey and Karen Taylor's $17,500 yearling probably now is worth oh, say, $7 million.

Enough money to turn Mickey and Karen Taylor into what they aren't to sour friendliness that must grow naturally in sweet people from White Swan, who are suddenly thrust into the frantic caldron of Derby week. Except in the case of the Taylors, it never happened. And last night, for the 998th time, Mickey Taylor explained why. "As long as you have control over your mind that's the important thing," he said. "We've got a great crew.

Billy deserves the credit. And Jean. With Jean riding and Billy training, we'll be here a long time." Billy Turner is Seattle Slew's trainer. Jean Cruguet is his jockey. They have known crueler times in the past.

Turner once trained Dust Commander, but was fired from the job a year before the colt won the 1970 Derby. The light way he prepared Seattle Slew for yesterday's race was widely questioned. "What's he going to do walk him to the race?" one critic asked. Cruguet has frequently been criticized for his rides. "If a race lasts longer than two minutes, he's sure to screw up," a trainer, John Campo, once said.

Yesterday, they were vindicated. They were vindicated even though Seattle Slew spent an eternity in the gate before finally saying to himself, "Hey, this is the Derby," and even though he had the fight of his young life on his hands before taking the lead after a mile. And even though he was given the whip about 11 times through the stretch a strange turn of events for a colt who is accustomed to nothing stronger than a heel in the shank or a whispered urging from his rider. "In his second race, he ran the same way," Mickey Taylor said. "I think when Billy schools him in the gate, he likes to stay there.

"The only problem was the paddock. It was a little like the Ringling Circus in there. But we won, and I'm happy to be right here. If the colt is sound tomorrow, we can go downhill from here. I don't believe he's at his peak yet." "Buying a champion was what was always on our mind," Karen Taylor said.

'fx i llllllllj Asi ill Staff Photo by Pam Spaulding Taylor (center huddles with husband Mickey at the winning owner's party A masterpiece: Great horse, dick fenloa Louisville Times Sports Editor luck, skill is a long time for the jockey to make no mistakes. With immortality in the balance, Cruguet made no mistake. It happened only an eighth of a mile from the gate. About to rear-end For The Moment, Cruguet pulled Seattle Slew to the right, away from the collision. He did it at the cost of bumping into Bob's Dusty, but the bump was so insignificant Cruguet wouldn't remember it later.

As the horses passed under the finish line the first time, For The Moment led Seattle Slew by a head. Had Cruguet let Slew skitter off-angle another second had he lacked the courage necessary to fly through close quarters had Slew been less of an athlete himself, For The Moment might have been 10 lengths ahead. For The Moment is a speed horse who carried his speed 118 miles to win the Blue Grass Stakes 10 days ago. If Slew were to lose yesterday, For The Moment seemed a likely winner, for he would be running on the lead with the Big Horse. For a little over a minute, For The Moment lead.

At the top of the stretch, turning for home, Seattle Slew led by a length. As they pounded again over the dust where Cruguet had worked his wonders a minute and a half earlier, Seattle Slew drew away to win easily. For The Moment finished eighth, beaten nearly 10 lengths. So much for testing Seattle Slew and Jean Cruguet. the half-mile pole.

For The Moment pulled away to a length lead. Then Cruguet went after the leader. Rounding the turn he kept moving up with Seattle Slew. At the top of the stretch he had For The Moment by the throat. Going to the whip and putting Seattle Slew to a drive, Cruguet opened up three lengths.

For The Moment was through, but when he dropped out of it, some late arrivals moved up to join the battle. Through the stretch, Cruguet kept Seattle Slew driving hard. Under the whip the big dark bay responded. They were coming at him and coming hard, but he was still clear at the wire. If you saw Seattle Slew run yesterday, you didn't see him run as well as he can.

He wasn't a champion runner, not yesterday. But what you saw was the heart of a champion. Seattle Slew is as game as he's fast, and you'll be seeing him at his brilliant best in races to come. And what you really saw was class. Seattle Slew owner Karen L.

comment bydave kindred Courier-Journal Sports Editor six of whom he had already beaten in earlier meetings. So good has the horse been that his guardians early in the week confessed to ambitions beyond the Derby. A Triple Crown is the dream. Sound evidence was available, then, for those sentimentalists who fell in love with Mickey and Karen Taylor, the good folks from White Swan, who own Seattle Slew. Nothing could have been finer than a victory for the trainer, Billy Turner, a man who charmed us all.

And if you cared about a man's pride, you rode with Cruguet yesterday when his work put the lie to the slanders that if Slew lost it would be because Cruguet's head is pure bone. Cruguet did it quickly. If Slew had been nervous in the parade to the post, he was not alone when the starting gate sprang open, for suddenly the race seemed to have been lost. Seattle Slew's first steps out of the fourth stall were to his right, his front end straining to go even farther right. This Derby was won in the first eighth of a mile when Jean Cruguet, the oft-maligned jockey, did a piece of work majestic in its beauty.

Had Cruguet been less a master of his trade, Seattle Slew might have been lost in a stampede. Instead, this year's Big Horse affirmed beyond doubt the propriety of his claim to greatness. Not without a sweat, though, both literally and figuratively. When the horses pranced onto the track to the accompaniment of "My Old Kentucky Home," Seattle Slew's dark brown coat glistened with perspiration. Horsemen see sweat as a sign of nerves, an omen of bad tidings should the horse waste energy biting its fingernails, say.

Jockeys do more than sit there and look pretty in their silks during the parade past the patrons of horsedom. Like a race driver about to take his car for a spin, the jockey tests his horse. Feeling good, Slew? Settle down, big boy. Want to warm up now? To that last question, Slew must have said no, because while the other 14 riders caused their horses to gallop on the backstretch of Churchill Downs, loosen-" ing up, Cruguet was content to walk along the outer rail in the company of an outrider. Just an easy stroll.

Nothing to worry about, big fella. The 124,038 customers made Seattle Slew the 1-2 favorite in a rare mix of wagering that allowed the financial investors to bet with both their hearts and heads. Here was an undefeated horse being tested in the Derby by 14 mediocrities, Slew won Things have come to a pretty pass when a man has to make excuses for a winner. I'm not going to do it, but I would like to point out a few things to those who were saying after the Derby: "I told you he wasn't any superhorse! Look at that slow time! And he was doing his absolute best!" That's true, all of it. Seattle Slew certainly didn't look like a superhorse, his time on the fast track wasn't impressive, and he was driven to his limit.

It was Ernest Hemingway, I believe, who offered this definition of class: "The abilty to do you best, against the best, under the worst possible conditions." The conditions weren't right yesterday for Seattle Slew. His racing career has been brief, three starts last year and three more this year, up to yesterday. He hasn't yet learned to stay calm and relaxed when surrounded by noise and bands and swarming photographers. By the time he had left the television cameras in the crowded paddock, Seattle Two things here. The luck of the draw for post position helped Slew.

Had he been in the ninth stall, say, those jerking steps to the right would have put him so far out of touch with the rail, behind so many horses, that he could have won only by taking a shortcut through the infield. With the luck came Cruguet's skill. Only a strong, experienced rider can straighten up a animal bred to run fast. No more than three steps from the gate, Cruguet had Seattle Slew straightened out. Soon enough they were flying.

Never in the six races of his life had Seattle Slew run behind horses. This would be a test, skeptics said. Only the crucible of sustained challenge can fire a horse for greatness, they said, and never had Slew faced such pressure. Facing it yesterday, he did what he has always done. He ran like crazy.

Ran so fast, in fact, that Cruguet needed to make another wonderful move. Once straightened out, Cruguet asked Slew to move toward the rail, saving ground. He steered the horse through a small hole between leadfooted pretenders and And, suddenly, was in trouble, moving so fast that he was about to run up on the heels of For The Moment. Under pressure, an athlete does two things. If he's common, he quits.

A winner acts decisively. The trainer, Johnny Campo, who talks a lot without thinking, once said Cruguet would have trouble winning the Derby because two minutes Still stirred up by the time he reached the starting gate, Seattle Slew didn't break well. He seemed to half-rear, coming out sideways. There was a frightening instant when Jean Cruguet appeared likely to be unsealed. By the time Cruguet straightened him out, Seattle Slew was in trouble.

He was as close to last as anything in the race, so Cruguet did what he had never done before. He turned Seattle Slew loose. Instead of cruising smoothly to the lead, as he has done before, Seattle Slew came charging through the field like a wild horse. He actually shoved Flag Officer and Affiliate out of his way. From this flat-footed, angling start, Seattle Slew reached the leader in a quarter of a mile.

He was head-and-head with For The Moment going into the clubhouse turn, at which point Cruguet took hold to save something. This putting on of the brakes didn't seem to suit Seattle Slew. He didn't stride as smoothly as he usually does, and, nearing the race with heart, not hooves if" Staff Photo by Bill luiter Mickey Taylor, who with his owns Kentucky Derby winner Seattle Slew, has a firm grip on the prize trophy after the race. Kentucky Gov. Julian Carroll presented the trophy.

mike barry Louisville Times Sports Columnist Slew was sweating. That is a sure sign of nervousness. When an experienced bettor sees a "washy" horse in the post parade, he usually bets something else. Not that Seattle Slew looked, as race-trackers like to say, as though he "had run through a car wash," but he was definitely wet..