However, a game-changing win came in 1977 through a belief in himself that he could compete with the very best and he paid out of his own pocket the costs to travel from Florida to California with a purpose.
There, he approached John Fulton, trainer for the Kinsman Stable owned by the notoriously hard-hearted owner of the New York Yankees baseball team, George Steinbrenner, and asked to ride their colt in the prestigious Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby to be run March 27.
The admiration the action of Fernandez engendered from Steinbrenner was reported by The Washington Post, quoting him as saying "how many kids would do that, pay their own money to go from Florida to the Coast on a chance he could get work?"
[5] On April 17, Ruben Hernandez and Steve's Friend gave Steinbrenner his biggest victory in racing when they won the Grade 1 Hollywood Derby.
A prestigious annual race for three-year-old horses hosted by one of the various Caribbean racetracks, the December 10, 1978, Clásico was run at Hippodromo El Nuevo Comandante.
[9] In 1979, three-year-old Coastal did not run in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes having only made his first start in late April as a result of a serious eye injury which had cut short his racing at age two.