Spend a Buck, Make a Buck

By Tom Callahan

Going some place in a feverish hurry, though exactly where is the next question, a bay bullet called Spend A Buck streaked away with the Kentucky Derby last week, posting the third-sprightliest mile and a quarter (2:00 1/5) in 111 springs at Churchill Downs. Stephan's Odyssey finished second, more than five lengths behind, and the 6-to-5 favorite, Chief's Crown, was third. Far up the track, or at least it seemed so, came that old plug tradition, which may be losing ground even now.

A glaring sunstorm boiled the fewest Louisville customers in 15 years (down almost 20,000 to about 108,000, mostly a matter of ticket prices' doubling) and baked the dirt track until the word blew about the backstretch shed rows like a whisper on a breeze: "It's Highway I-65 out there." That cinched what had been the popular wisdom all week. This race would turn on the two speedballs in the field of 13: Spend A Buck and Eternal Prince. Should both dart out ahead, might they form a suicide pact? "Sure, they could kill each other," Jockey Angel Cordero had agreed with a poisonous smile, "but I promise you one thing, Eternal Prince won't ever get in front of my horse." His horse was Spend A Buck. Fidgeting inside the fifth slot of the gate, Eternal Prince cocked his head left and right at every clamor and curiosity. His start was inevitably dull, and Cordero was gone. Finishing one-two, Cordero and Laffit Pincay only reconfirmed their eminence in the sport, though almost all of the other principals were extraordinary.

Beyond the wonder of his arthro scopic knee surgery last November, the fact that Spend A Buck began his twelve-race career (eight wins) at Florida's Calder Race Course was a delight of its own. Henceforth, at least for a while, "a Calder horse" will no longer serve as racing shorthand for a second-rater. Both the owner and trainer are recent arrivals in the sport, both of Tampa, Fla. Dennis Diaz, who retired from the real estate and insurance businesses four years ago at 38, discovered "there's only so much fishing a man can do." With $12,500, which this industry calls a pittance, he bought a Buckpasser grandson, and converted his cattle ranch to a horse farm. Not so long ago, Trainer Cam Gambolati was a Laundromat operator and a statistician on a Tampa Bay Buccaneers football team that won as few as no games a year.

Because their horse previously won the Cherry Hill Mile and the Garden State Stakes in New Jersey, the two are in a financial quandary now that describes the changing standards of the sport. Ordinarily a smashing Derby winner points automatically to next week's Preakness, with further dreams at Belmont. But a $2 million bonus, on top of a $600,000 Jersey Derby purse, awaits the horse that can sweep those three Garden State races and the Kentucky Derby. The Jersey Derby comes nine days after the Preakness, and Spend A Buck cannot keep both appointments. "We're in the business to win purses," Diaz said, pointing out ominously that there are other routes to high stud fees than the Triple Crown. The rub is there are none sweeter.