California Chrome's story worthy of a Triple Crown
By Rob McCurdy May 13, 2014
May 3, 2014; Louisville, KY, USA; Victor Espinoza aboard California Chrome (5) races during the 2014 Kentucky Derby. Mandatory Credit: Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports / Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports
May 3, 2014; Louisville, KY, USA; California Chrome co-owners Perry Martin (left) and Steven Coburn (middle) receive the winner's trophy after the 2014 Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs. Mandatory Credit: Jamie Rhodes-USA TODAY Sports / Jamie Rhodes-USA TODAY Sports
Somewhere a writer ripped up his manuscript in frustration as fact proved better than any of his fiction.
Disney has to be watching with interest. Cue the sappy John Tesh music as an industry awaits collectively with bated breath.
One heck of a true life story is being played out in front of our eyes. California Chrome, the horse born on the wrong side of the tracks with a couple of nobody owners and an unheralded trainer, is the Kentucky Derby winner and poised to become the first Triple Crown winner since 1978.
Who would believe it?
It’s not called the sport of kings for nothing. The bloodlines of the players are more scrutinized than the Hapsburgs and Windsors. Meanwhile, Chrome’s pedigree reads like an excommunicated member of a ruling class.
California Chrome traces his heritage to the great Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew through AP Indy and Pulpit. However, his daddy, Lucky Pulpit, never lived up to the family name. He was in the money in just two of six graded stakes, finishing seventh in the Santa Anita Derby at 3. He made 22 starts with three wins, five places and five shows for a little over $200,000 in earnings.
Kentucky Derby winning trainer Art Sherman talks about California Chrome's victory at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky., Sunday, May 4, 2014. (AP Photo/Garry Jones) / AP
Lucky Pulpit was left to stud near Fresno, Calif., hardly bluegrass country where bluebloods are born. In an industry where stud fees can be six figures, his was allegedly just $2,500. Chrome’s mommy, Love The Chase, ran just six times at Golden Gate Fields, earning $7,020 in her lifetime.
So predicting greatness based on the DNA from an underachieving horse and a never-performing nag was a longshot, but that’s just one third of the story.
His owners, Steve Coburn and Perry Martin, will never be confused with Sheikh of Dubai or the other billionaires in the game. Coburn is a press operator at a small factory in Nevada that makes magnetic strips for credit cards. Martin owns a small testing lab in Sacramento, Calif.
The two got into the sport on a whim, Coburn joking that he nearly bought a small airplane. Instead, Coburn and Martin bought Love The Chase — which prompted a groom to tell them they were “a couple of dumbasses” for buying her. With that endorsement, they named their new enterprise DAP Racing – the DAP short for Dumbass Partners.
Buying the mare and putting her with Lucky Pulpit cost a reported $10,000 combined, an investment that would turn into something akin to buying stock in Coca-Cola or IBM when they both start-ups.
But that’s just two-thirds of the story. Someone had to take a raw colt and turn him into a champion.
Bob Baffert? D. Wayne Lukas? Todd Pletcher? Shug McGaughney? Nope.
How about Art Sherman?
The closest Sherman ever came to the Kentucky Derby was when he bunked with the great Swaps in 1955 as the horse’s exercise rider. He became a jockey of little note who retired in 1978 and become a trainer two years later.
Sherman was a journeyman on the West Coast, ultimately setting up shop at Los Alamitos, a track better known for quarter horse racing.
The two DAPs trusted their unlikely foal with a largely undecorated trainer. When it worked, winning the San Felipe and Santa Anita derbies in romps, they were offered a winning lottery ticket. For $6 million, they could become silent partners and watch their colt go to the big leagues without their silks and without Sherman.
Instead, they trusted in California Chrome, trusted in Sherman and trusted in each other. They went to Kentucky on their own.
The trust paid off. Chrome became the first California-bred horse to win the Derby since 1962. At 77, Sherman became the oldest trainer to win the race. With $1.24 million in winnings from the purse, the owners are well on their way to making that $6 million offer look like tipping money — especially if Chrome can do what no horse has done in 36 years, win the Triple Crown.
Don’t bet against them.
“I told people this colt will go down in history,” the outspoken Coburn said following the Derby. “When he wins the Triple Crown, he will be the first California-bred to win a Triple Crown. That’s where we’re going.”
The horse has made millions of fans, including some in the backstretch barns and the paddock.
• “The winner was just better. We looked him in the eye and he just pulled away,” said Rick Violette, trainer of fifth-place Samraat in the Derby.
• “I didn’t think California Chrome had any chance going into this race and I was very, very wrong. Whether the crop’s a good crop or not, that’s a special horse,” trainer Dale Romans said after seeing Chrome beat his eighth-place and regally raised Medal Count. “I was wrong. I was a very big skeptic.
“I threw him out of all my tickets in every spot. I didn’t think he fit the profile to win the Derby. I’m very impressed the way he came into it, the way he looked, the way he was prepared and the way he ran. Now he has a new fan.”
• “I was watching California Chrome stalking. You could tell he was comfortable the whole way. He’s for real. It’s going to be a great Triple Crown series,” Baffert said.
If California Chrome pulls it off like his owner believes, fact will trump fiction and a new underdog story will be told.
“We’ve been blessed with this colt and the trainer that we have that took the time, took the patience, (and) put this colt on the path we had written out for him,” Coburn told reporters. “Yeah, we’re really blessed. I can’t say any more than that.”
Leave it to the screenwriters, composers and movie studios to add the dialogue.
