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. ==Honors and awards==