Sandy, can you give more story your time as a 4 year old and around Affirmed? Did you live in upstate NY or was Affirmed some place else? pretty fascinating.
No Affirmed was at Belmont Park from the spring of 1979, until he retired that fall. Remember that Laz Barrera (his trainer, and another Cuban like frank Martin) was primarily based in California, which was where Affirmed started out each or the two years of his racing career. Now that I double check, it was more like five months that I was with him as a four year old, all at Belmont Park. He didn't race at Saratoga as a four year old, but did at 3, where he was notoriously disqualified in the travers Stakes that year, giving Alydar the win. Here's one of the better lifetime past performance charts you'll ever see. The only time Affirmed finished out of the money was in the 1977 Jockey Club Gold Cup when his saddle slipped. He wouldn't have beaten Exceller or Seattle Slew that day anyway, as they were 15 lengths ahead of the rest of the field, and three year olds historically don't fare that well against older horses by the fall of the year. It certainly didn't help that both Exceller and Seattle Slew were in peak form then, and Slew in particular was a monster.
To this day, I've never seen a tougher, gamer racehorse. When he made the lead (and you can see from the PPs that he was either on or near it most of the time), he was near impossible to pass, and always managed to find another gear. They even packed 132 pounds on him in the 1979 Hollywood Gold Cup (which is a lot of weight going that far, and something Racings Secretaries won't do anymore), and he beat a string field on the lead the entire way. Horses just aren't made of stuff like that anymore, and the good ones rarely even run at four anymore, which explains a lot of the sport's decline, as well. I left the track in 2005, and I'm glad I did. I loved the game, the people, and the horses, but it was a terrible way to make a living.