Kentucky Derby Diary : Spend A Buck Has Been a Windfall for His Team

The phone rang in Cam Gambolati’s room at the Executive Inn West near Churchill Downs. Gambolati is the 35-year-old trainer of Spend A Buck, a 6-to-1 shot to win Saturday’s Kentucky Derby.

“Cammie?” the voice at the other end of the line said.

Only close friends usually call Gambolati that.

Yet the caller was a radio reporter from New York whom the trainer didn’t know. She wanted to do a telephone interview with Gambolati the next day at 9 or 10 a.m., which was an inconvenient time because the trainer would be at the barn with his 3-year-old colt.

When Gambolati told the broadcaster that he wasn’t available, she said: “Gee, I’m sorry you can’t come on, because I wanted to do a live interview about what a nutrition freak you are are with your horses.”

Gambolati said: “Er, you must have me confused with somebody else. I’m not a nutrition guy.”

Then Gambolati got a mischievous idea. He and Roger Laurin are good friends. Laurin trains Chief’s Crown, favored to win the Derby.

“You’re probably thinking of Roger Laurin,” Gambolati told the broadcaster. “He’s a big nutrition guy.”

Said the woman: “No, it’s not Laurin. I’ve already called him. He’s the one who told me it was you.”

For a trainer who has got a horse running in the Derby for the first time, Gambolati is rolling with the punches as well as anybody, pranks by buddy Laurin notwithstanding.

“I’m having fun,” Gambolati said. “I’m enjoying all the attention (from the media). The only thing is, there’s a lot of repetition. You’ll answer a guy’s question and then five minutes later another guy will come along and ask the same question.”

As Derby week was grinding along Thursday, Gambolati showed that he hadn’t lost his sense of humor. The draw for post positions was scheduled for 10 a.m. in the track’s new, $8-million Derby Museum, but it was delayed for about 15 minutes.

“Maybe the racing department’s still trying to hustle the race,” Gambolati said, using an expression that’s usually saved for lesser races on a track’s program.

Gambolati doesn’t appear to be pinching himself, but he should be.

Two years ago, he was only an assistant trainer working for Norm St. Leon on the South Florida circuit. He had graduated from St. Leo’s College near Tampa, Fla., with a liberal-arts degree but had been attracted to racing at an early age; his father, a Hartford, Conn., man, owned some cheap horses that ran at Suffolk Downs and Rockingham Park.

Spend A Buck is Gambolati’s first stakes winner. He met the colt’s owner, Dennis Diaz, who was just getting into the business, at a horse sale.

Gambolati got successful at just the right time for Bobby Velez, an exercise rider who was looking for another connection after working for 17 years for Budd Lepman, a Florida trainer.

In his last 10 years with Lepman, Velez, despite being elevated to assistant trainer’s status, had gotten only nine days of vacation. He asked Lepman for permission to spend 10 days with Spend A Buck, and when the trainer refused, Velez quit and went to work for Gambolati full time.

One of the horses that Velez had while working for Lepman was Eillo, who won a Breeders’ Cup race at Hollywood Park last November, clinching the national sprint championship.

The 38-year-old Velez suffered with Eillo during the couple of weeks after the Breeders’ Cup as the horse became ill and died despite emergency stomach surgery.

“I went to Chino where they did the operation on Eillo,” Velez said. “I watched them taking about 15 feet of his intestine. I never knew a horse had that much in his stomach. When they brought him off the operating table, I had the feeling that he wasn’t going to make it.”

Velez believes that if the come-from-behinders in the Derby allow Spend A Buck and jockey Angel Cordero to go the first half-mile in 48 seconds, “They won’t be able to catch us.” The closers--Proud Truth, Stephan’s Odyssey, Tank’s Prospect, Skywalker, Rhoman Rule--are fortunate that Eternal Prince, winner of the Wood Memorial and another horse with early foot, is in the race, because he should prevent Spend A Buck from loping along with an easy early lead.

Velez was rooming with Spend A Buck’s owner at the Executive West until Linda Diaz, Dennis’ wife, arrived early this week. Then Velez got his own room.

On Thursday, Dennis Diaz denied rumors that he had sold half of the colt to Will Farish, the Lexington, Ky., owner-breeder who has a good chance to win today’s Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs with the 3-year-old filly Folk Art.

“There just isn’t enough time before the Derby to put a deal together,” Diaz said. “Sunday or Monday, we might put something together, but for the Derby the horse will run in my name and Linda’s.”

Should Spend A Buck upset Chief’s Crown Saturday, Farish will wish that he had closed the deal before the Derby. The horse’s value already is approximately $12 million.

KENTUCKY DERBY FIELD

Post Position Horse Jockey Odds 1. Irish Fighter Pat Day 30-1 2. Chief’s Crown Don MacBeth 9-5 3. a-Rhoman Rule Jacinto Vasquez 5-1 4. Tank’s Prospect Gary Stevens 8-1 5. a-Eternal Prince Richard Migliore 5-1 6. Stephan’s Odyssey Laffit Pincay 8-1 7. Encolure Ronald Ardoin 30-1 8. I Am The Game Darrel McHargue 30-1 9. Floating Reserve Sandy Hawley 20-1 10. Spend A Buck Angel Cordero 6-1 11. Proud Truth Jorge Velasquez 9-2 12. Skywalker Eddie Delahoussaye 12-1 13. Fast Account Chris McCarron 20-1

Trainers (by post position): 1. Billy Borders. 2. Roger Laurin. 3. Angel Penna Jr. 4. Wayne Lukas. 5. John Lenzini, Jr. 6. Woody Stephens. 7. Tom Morgan. 8. King T. Leatherbury. 9. Joseph Manzi. 10. Cam Gambolati. 11. John Veitch. 12. Mike Whittingham. 13. Patricia L. Johnson.

Owners (by post position): 1. Izzy Proler. 2. Star Crown Stable. 3. Brownell Combs II and others. 4. Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Klein. 5. Brian J. Hurst, George M. Steinbrenner, Brownell Combs II and John and Pauletta Post. 6. Henryk de Kwiatkowski. 7. The estate of Fred Porter. 8. King T. Leatherbury. 9. Robert E. Hippert. 10. Hunter Farm. 11. Darby Dan Farm. 12. Oak Cliff Stable. 13. W.R. Hawn. Weights: 126 pounds each. Distance: 1 miles. Purse: $581,800 if 13 start. First place: $406,800. Second place: $100,000. Third place: $50,000. Fourth place: $25,000. Post time: 2:38 p.m. PDT.

a--Brownell Combs II-owned entry.