Doug Peterson, 53; Trainer Took Seattle Slew to Division Title One Year After Horse Won Triple Crown

Doug Peterson, a thoroughbred trainer whose work with Seattle Slew in 1978 led to a division title for the horse who had swept the Triple Crown under a different trainer the year before, was found dead Monday at a hotel near Hollywood Park, the Los Angeles coroner’s office said. He was 53.

Peterson was found in his room at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Lt. Cheryl MacWillie said. “He was lying on his side, and there was no trauma,” she said. A toxicology report that might help determine the cause of death would be completed in six to eight weeks, MacWillie said.

Peterson, whose stable had won 11 races this year, was seriously injured 18 months ago when a cart on a golf course fell on him. He required a walker to move about, and had told friends that his injuries would require additional surgery.

Peterson was 26 and an obscure horseman when Jim Hill, one of the owners of Seattle Slew, called him in December 1977 to ask if he would take over the training of the colt. Hill and his partners had fired trainer Billy Turner, who won the 1977 Triple Crown as Seattle Slew captured the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes.

“Although Slew was still a magnificent horse, there was a downside to taking him,” Peterson once said. “He was sick, and what was left for him to do after all he had accomplished? But at my age, how could you not take the horse?”

In Florida during the winter of 1978, Peterson was credited with saving the horse’s life by acting quickly when Seattle Slew was struck by a potentially fatal viral infection. Seattle Slew recovered and won four races, including the Marlboro Cup and the Woodward Stakes at Belmont Park in New York.

In the Marlboro, he beat Affirmed, the 1978 Triple Crown champion. Seattle Slew, horse of the year in 1977 under Turner, was voted an Eclipse Award in 1978 for best older male horse racing on a dirt track.

“I never saw a horse who wouldn’t take a day off after a race,” Peterson said in an interview with The Times after Seattle Slew died in 2002. “Usually after a horse runs, they’ll walk for a few days. But if you tried to walk Slew the day after, he would kick the barn down. Once you put a saddle on him, he would quiet down.”

Born in Denver, Peterson discovered the racetrack when he was 11. At 18, the same year he took out his first trainer’s license, he won with Texas Sky at La Mesa Park in New Mexico, reportedly becoming the youngest conditioner to win a $100,000 race.

For a few years in the early 1980s, Peterson left racing as he tried to overcome alcohol and drug dependencies. Working his way back, he took jobs as an entry clerk and a member of the starting-gate crew at Los Alamitos Race Course in Orange County.

Peterson won the Massachusetts Handicap with Big John Taylor in 1978. Among his other better horses were Fly’n J. Bryan, Reality Changes, Sigfreto and Nuits St. Georges, who was a Kentucky Derby prospect in 1990 before he was injured in the Arkansas Derby.

Peterson also trained Apalachee Ridge, who ran six furlongs in 1:07 2/5 at Hollywood Park in 1997, and still shares the track record.

Peterson’s survivors include a son, David.