Scorecard

BUT COME SEPTEMBER

Last week the racing world was startled to read that Trainer Billy Turner was considering running Seattle Slew against mighty Forego in the Metropolitan Handicap at Belmont on Memorial Day. Surely Turner would not risk Slew's chance of becoming the first undefeated Triple Crown winner in racing history?

Of course he wouldn't. Billy Turner was funning the press and perhaps needling Forego's trainer, Frank Whiteley, as well. He also had an ulterior motive. Experts felt that Turner would declare his horse out of the race before Racing Secretary Tommy Trotter assigned the weights for the handicap, often the procedure when a trainer does not intend to run. But Slew's owners, Karen and Mickey Taylor, wanted to know just what Trotter thought of their beloved animal. On Wednesday, he told them.

Once again, eyebrows were raised. Trotter, one of the most respected handicappers in the country, had rated Slew, described just weeks ago as "only the best of an ordinary crop," the equal of Forego, three times Horse of the Year.

The racing secretary begins his handicapping task with a standard scale of weights established decades ago. The scale calls for 3-year-olds in May to carry 113 pounds at a mile and older horses 127. But Forego, of course, is far superior to the average horse, so Trotter added six pounds, assigning the 7-year-old gelding 133. "You can't give him too much weight, because you've got the whole year ahead of you," says Trotter, who levied the 137 pounds that Forego and Bill Shoemaker carried to a stunning victory in last year's Marlboro Cup. "I started with 132 for the Roseben, which wasn't run last week because of the strike of pari-mutuel clerks, but when Forego ran over the field in Monday's seven-furlong race, he showed he was back in top form, so I penalized him a pound.

"Slew is undefeated, has shown he can both sprint and go a distance, and he is a good mile horse," says Trotter, who assigned the colt 119, also six pounds over scale and five pounds more than anyone could recall a 3-year-old being assigned in the Metropolitan. Does that mean that Slew is as good as Forego? "Well, yes, I guess it does," says Trotter. "At least, in my opinion." Trotter says that at any distance shorter than a mile and a half, which Slew has never run, he would rate the horses equal, and at the longer distance he would probably drop him only a pound.

When handicappers highweight their horses, owners are not usually very happy, but the Taylors were delighted. "We're honored and so proud," said Karen, "and if he ran, we're sure he would win."

HELP WANTED

The financial outlook for the four NBA teams formerly with the ABA is, to put it mildly, bleak—especially that of the Indiana Pacers. The final payment on the $3.2 million entrance fee into the NBA is due this week and the Pacers are already several million dollars in debt.

Last week, while the current owners were out of town looking for a new buyer, Roberta Sussman, a secretary in the Pacers' office, tried to do her part. She made a sign and put it in the front window: MILLIONAIRES WANTED—INQUIRE WITHIN.