Kentucky Derby Diary : Spending a Buck or Two Doesn’t Menace Dennis

The Spend a Buck bunch had discovered Casa Grisanti, considered by many to be the best restaurant in Louisville, a city famous for bourbon whiskey, the Kentucky Derby and artificial hearts, but not known for an abundance of good restaurants.

Casa Grisanti is an exception, and the Spend a Buck bunch was out en masse--Dennis Diaz, who picked the colt and bought him for $12,500 at a bankruptcy sale; Camillo (Cam) Gambolati, the 35-year-old trainer who’s been on his own for little more than a year; Bobby Velez, the exercise rider who used to shine the shoes of Roberto Clemente, the late baseball Hall of Famer, back in Puerto Rico, and Mary Hale, the groom who has made Spend a Buck’s barn at Churchill Downs look a little like an arboretum.

They were joined by Linda Diaz, wife of Spend a Buck’s owner, who brought lukewarm tidings from Florida, where they all live. Id Am Fac, a filly the Diazes own, had finished second earlier in the day in the Chris Evert Handicap at Hialeah.

“She got beat by that much,” Linda Diaz said, her thumb and index finger just a couple of inches apart. “She’s always losing by that much.”

Saturday’s 111th Kentucky Derby will be a first for the Spend a Buck bunch. None of them has seen the race before except on television. A win Saturday would be worth about $500,000, while another win in the Jersey Derby at Garden Stake Park May 27 would bring in a $2-million bonus that Garden State is putting up. Spend a Buck already has earned $991,709 with seven wins, two seconds and two thirds in 11 starts.

According to Dennis Diaz, he was offered $6 million for 50% of the colt before Spend a Buck’s 9 1/2-length win in the Garden State Stakes April 20.

“After the race, the same guy came up and said his offer still stood,” Diaz said. “I told him that $6 million wasn’t good enough for half of the horse after he had won the race.”

Diaz, 42, doesn’t need the money. He was successful in insurance, real estate and the construction business, but grew tired of them and retired four years ago. Then he got bored. A friend, Elliott Fuentes, suggested that he try the horse business, and that sounded about right because Diaz, the son of a dairyman, wanted to get back to the farm, anyway.

The Diazes own 50 acres just a few miles from Tampa Bay Downs, a small track owned by George Steinbrenner, who also has a horse, Eternal Prince, scheduled to run in the Derby. Spend a Buck and Eternal Prince, the Wood Memorial winner, are considered to be the early speed in the Derby, theoretically setting up the race for late-running colts that include the favored Chief’s Crown, Proud Truth, Stephan’s Odyssey, Rhoman Rule, Skywalker and Tank’s Prospect.

The other day, a reporter asked Diaz if it was correct to refer to him as a millionaire.

“Well, let’s put it this way,” Diaz said. “You can’t get into the horse business the way I have by being a thousandaire.”

Diaz doesn’t dress the part. Tom Tatham, another young millionaire--oil and gas--is the principal owner of Skywalker, and he appeared at Churchill Downs Tuesday morning in leather boots, a suede jacket and obviously expensive trousers. Diaz, a barn away, was out in wash pants, an old blue jacket and a scruffy sport shirt.

Diaz thought so much of Spend a Buck late in the horse’s 2-year-old season that he risked $120,000--a supplemental fee--just to start him in the $1-million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Stakes last November at Hollywood Park. The colt led going into Hollywood’s impossible 1,321-foot stretch, then finished third, behind Chief’s Crown, the winner, and Tank’s Prospect.

Spend a Buck’s share of the purse was $108,000. “Counting shipping and other expenses, the trip to California resulted in a loss of about $30,000,” Diaz said.

If Diaz can get 40 or 50 tickets for Derby day, he should be able to handle the demand of family and friends. It will be the first time that more than 100,000 people will be screaming at his horse, and the Derby is different for those who run the horses, too.

“This race transcends the participants,” Diaz said. “It’s a tough race to plan for. You ship a horse to any other race and you just tell the track what you want and they get it for you. It doesn’t always work that way here, because the demand is so great.”

Before the Spend a Buck bunch had broken up at Casa Grisanti, Diaz had spotted a couple of sportswriters dining across the room and quietly told his waiter that he’d like to pay their check.

“Geez, he meant well, but my paper doesn’t want me doing that,” one of the writers said later.

The way out would be to reciprocate when Dennis Diaz has dinner later in the week. But finding him eating alone might be a problem.