Spend a Buck

Spend a Buck was sired by Buckaroo[1] out of the dam Belle de Jour. Through his son Einstein (BRZ), he is now the primary source for the Buckpasser sire line in the United States.[2] Spend a Buck is inbred 5x5 to Prince Rose and is line bred 5x8x8x6 to Man o' War, while his sire Buckaroo is inbred 4x5 to Blue Larkspur and La Troienne.[3]

On May 4, 1985, Spend a Buck won the Kentucky Derby by 5-3/4 lengths over Stephan's Odyssey under jockey Angel Cordero Jr. His 2:00 1/5 time is the fourth fastest as of 2023. He paid $10.20, $5.40, and $3.40. It was his trainer Cam Gambolati's first attempt to win the Derby, a feat not matched again until 2003 when Barclay Tagg saddled Funny Cide for his win.

Earlier in the season, Spend a Buck had won two races at the newly reopened Garden State Park Racetrack in Cherry Hill, New Jersey: the Cherry Hill Mile Stakes on April 6 and the Garden State Stakes on April 20. Before the season began, Garden State Park owner Robert Brennan had put up a $2-million bonus to the horse that won the two April preparatory races, the Kentucky Derby, and the May 27 Jersey Derby, Garden State's signature race.

Spend a Buck's owner, Dennis Diaz, opted to skip the Preakness Stakes and the Belmont Stakes and thus trade Spend a Buck's chance to win the Triple Crown for a shot at the bonus. Cordero, Spend a Buck's regular jockey, was committed to another race that day, so Hall of Fame jockey Laffit Pincay Jr. rode Spend a Buck at Garden State. Spend a Buck won the Jersey Derby by a neck over eventual Belmont winner Creme Fraiche, capturing a $2.6-million prize, the then largest single purse in American racing history. That record stood for 19 years, until Smarty Jones won the 2004 Kentucky Derby.

Because Spend a Buck skipped the last two legs of the Triple Crown, the Triple Crown races put up a bonus of their own to encourage participation in the series.

Spend a Buck set a track record of 146.80 for a mile and an eighth in winning the 1985 Monmouth Handicap (now known as the Philip H. Iselin Stakes), which stood for 37 years until broken in 2022.

Spend a Buck was voted the 1985 Eclipse Award for Horse of the Year and Champion Three-Year-Old Colt.

Several races were named for Spend a Buck, including the Spend a Buck Stakes at Monmouth Park and the Grade III Spend a Buck Handicap at Calder Race Course.

Spend a Buck had a successful post-racing career standing stud,[4] siring 27 stakes winners with earnings of over $16 million. He died on November 24, 2002, at Haras Bage do Sul in Brazil following an anaphylactic reaction to penicillin.[5]

• Spend a Buck's Kentucky Derby
• Spend a Buck's pedigree and partial racing stats