Breeder’s Affirmed won Triple Crown

Louis Wolfson, 95, who raced Affirmed, the 11th and most recent Triple Crown winner, died Sunday at his home in Bal Harbour, Fla., his family said. He had Alzheimer’s disease.

Wolfson and his wife, Patrice, sold Harbor View Farm in 1977 but continued to breed and race under the name with great success.

In 1978, Affirmed won the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes, and was named horse of the year.

The Wolfsons also raced Raise a Native, the 2-year-old champion of 1963; Roman Brother, who shared horse of the year honors with Moccasin in 1965; and the multiple-stakes winners Outstandingly, It’s in the Air and Flawlessly.

Affirmed was a son of Exclusive Native and grandson of Raise a Native.

“It’s a great feeling to own a champion,” Wolfson said after the 1978 Belmont Stakes, according to Bloodhorse.com, a website about racing. “But it is not the same as racing one you have bred. I spent 20 years of my life. I bred and raised Affirmed’s sire. I brought him into this world and I raised him at my farm.”

Wilson was born Jan. 28, 1912, in St. Louis. He worked as an industrialist and Wall Street financier. In the late 1960s, he was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice charges related to a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into Merritt-Chapman, a company he chaired, and served a year in federal prison. He tried to appeal the conviction to the Supreme Court, which turned him down, but not before Justice Abe Fortas resigned after disclosing that he had agreed to accept a $20,000 annual fee from a foundation headed by Wolfson.

One of Wolfson’s three sons, Marty, is a horse trainer based in Florida.