Seattle Slew To Undergo Surgery

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Central Kentucky sire Seattle Slew is scheduled to undergo surgery this week and his return, if ever, to stallion service will depend upon what is in the best interests of the horse, according to a press release by Three Chimneys Farm owner Robert N. Clay on behalf of stallion manager Mickey Taylor and syndicate members. Dr. Barrie Grant, who performed a neurological examination on Seattle Slew Feb. 26 at the farm, will head the team that will perform an anterior inter-body fusion.

Seattle Slew, 28, was taken to Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital near Lexington for X rays and a myelogram. He was found to have further spinal cord compression due to arthritic changes in the vertebrae. The compression is at a site other than where the anterior inter-body fusion was performed two years ago. An examination of that area showed the Bagby basket fusion around vertebrae No. 6 and 7 to be functioning properly. Seattle Slew now is troubled by compression between vertebrae No. 4 and 5 and between No. 5 and 6. A Bagby basket will be inserted around each of the two problems areas. Grant said that the minimum recovery time from surgery of this sort is six to eight weeks.

Seattle Slew (Bold Reasoning--My Charmer, by Poker) currently is back at Three Chimneys near Midway. "He's perfectly healthy, and you wouldn't know anything is wrong," Clay said. "But one of the risks is that if he falls, he might hurt himself permanently."

Seattle Slew has impregnated one of the eight mares he covered this year.

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