Racing Career
Her first race was an $8,000 claiming event for two-year-olds at Belmont Park. There were no takers. Ridden by Eldon Nelson, she won by six lengths.
Sent to California, Silver Spoon dominated her division, going undefeated in a six-race winning streak. Winning both the Santa Susana Stakes now called the Santa Anita Oaks and the Santa Anita Derby, she became one of only two fillies ever to do so. The other was the winner of the 1988 Kentucky Derby: Winning Colors. In the Santa Anita Derby, she took the race against colts. With her ears pricked, she romped home by two and a half lengths against that year's eventual Preakness Stakes winner, Royal Orbit. This was the win that convinced her connections to enter her in the 1959 Kentucky Derby. The only filly to start in the race between the years 1945 to 1980, she came in a respectable fifth, three and a half lengths behind the winner, Tomy Lee. A few months later, back on the West Coast, she soundly beat Tomy Lee in the Cinema Handicap. In the Cinema, she conceded 9 pounds to the runner-up. In the press, Silver Spoon was hailed as the best filly since the war.
Read more about this topic: Silver Spoon (horse)
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