70's East VS West Derby Match-ups

[Calzone Lord]

Had Flying Paster won the San Felipe - both he and SB would have met in the Derby on 10-race winning streaks - all in stakes company.




In '79, the San Felipe was run as a Handicap. FP was asked to carry 127lbs - one more than Affirmed was assigned when he won the race by 2 lengths the prior year.

FP worked a mile in 1:38 1/5 over the Santa Anita training track just 4 days before that race - according to Joe Hirsch - the SA training track was always very deep and slow - and the work itself "startled Western horsemen for its severity"

FP was beaten a neck as the significant highweight and "raced wide throughout" - no video of this race anywhere that I know of.

The horse who beat FP was a nice horse named Pole Position. He won 16 of 35 races lifetime. He had won the Santa Catalina in his prior start. Won a bunch of good stakes race that season from distances of 7 furlongs to 10 furlongs on both coasts.

Whatever the case, FP responded from the San Felipe loss with a 6.5 length win in the Gr 1 Santa Anita Derby at 3/5 odds next out. And a 10 length win in the rich Gr 1 Hollywood Derby as his final Derby prep.

Hard to follow Affirmed and Alydar ... but that was meant to be a great match-up on paper.