He’s only 4 years old, but already has 17,000 followers on his unofficial Twitter account and more than 130,000 “likes” on Facebook.
The colt, the favourite to win the Dubai World Cup tomorrow, has earned himself the title of the People’s Horse and was crowned American Horse of the Year 2014. In his short career, he has already amassed his own legion of fans, known as Chromies, who wrap themselves in tinfoil and wear coloured plasters over their noses to mimic his nasal strips.
As far as likeable celebrities of the equine world go, California Chrome is fast catching up with the likes of Shergar, Frankel and Red Rum.
Part of his appeal seems to be his laid-back attitude and so-called rags-to-riches story. In December, he won the Secretariat Vox Populi Award, or Voice of the People Award, a prize voted for by the public that recognises the horse whose “popularity and racing excellence best resounded with the American public and gained recognition for thoroughbred racing”.
“Everyone loves a Cinderella story, and this was no exception,” said Penney Chenery, the owner of the American Triple Crown champion Secretariat, in whose name the award was set up. “California Chrome, a proven champion and formidable competitor, reminded us that it doesn’t matter from whence we came, but rather how we dance from when we get to the ball.”
To an untrained eye, his bloodline – despite including the mighty Northern Dancer, twice – Chrome shouldn’t be much of a ballroom dancer. He is, in thoroughbred racing terms, merely a modest pedigree.
The world’s greatest racehorse, for example, Frankel, has an incredibly successful bloodline that is often hailed as the reason for his unbeaten 14-race career. Now retired, he commands a £125,000 (Dh682,801) stud fee and has a 95 per cent recorded fertility rate.
In December 2013, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, paid £4.2 million for the retired thoroughbred mare Dancing Rain. The peak of her career was winning the 2011 Epsom Oaks. His team was more interested in Frankel's foal, which she was carrying. It was a great reminder of the value that breeders and trainers put on bloodline.
Chrome’s ancestry pales in comparison. He was foaled on February 18, 2011, from Love the Chase, who cost her owners US$8,000 (Dh29,384) when they bought more than a dozen people out of an ownership syndicate. His sire, the 10-year-old Lucky Pulpit, commanded just $2,000 as his stud fee.
The owners of Love the Chase, and now Chrome, are Perry Martin, a physicist from California, and Steve Coburn, of Nevada, and their wives Denise and Carolyn. Together they run DAP Racing and like their horse, are not thought to take themselves too seriously.
Legend has it they chose the name DAP, which stands for Dumb-Ass Partners, in response to someone who mocked their decision to purchase Love the Chase, who had a modest race record and a habit of panicking in the saddling paddock and losing races before she had even begun. It’s said that they picked the name California Chrome after putting four potential names in a hat – one written by each of the four owners – and asking a waitress in a bar to draw the winner.
As part of their branding, Martin and Coburn, who’s rarely seen without his beige cowboy hat, created a tongue-in-cheek bucktoothed donkey emblem to adorn their purple-and-green racing silks. They also have their own brand of hot sauce, which sells for $8.99 a bottle. Other merchandise includes T-shirts and baseball caps.
After retiring Love the Chase in 2009, they discovered she had a breathing problem. Even so, they decided to breed her. Her foal’s reputation and position as a Kentucky Derby winner pushed her value up significantly from that initial $8,000. Martin and Coburn have reportedly refused offers for her of up to $2.1m.
During his birth at California’s Harris Farms, the horse breeding division of the beef producer Harris Ranch, Love the Chase suffered a uterine tear and was forced to remain in her stable with her foal for more than a month. She was given regular medication and health checks, exposing her young foal to much more human contact than is usual. Experts believed that because of this contact he imprinted on human beings as well as his dam.
According to an article in Blood-Horse magazine, it was his experiences in the stable that shaped the character of the foal, nicknamed Junior because of his likeness to his sire Lucky Pulpit, and made him such a good horse to work with.
"He got used to the attention of other vets and handlers, always being touched, always watching and listening; he learnt to anticipate what people wanted him to do," the report said.
The horse’s successful relationship with his trainer Art Sherman has also been attributed to the stable imprinting. Sherman, 78, has worked with California Chrome for two years and became the oldest trainer to win a Kentucky Derby when the horse claimed first last year.
He was hired, along with his son Alan, by Martin and Coburn when the colt turned 2 and was ready to train. Art Sherman, born in Brooklyn, New York, began his racing career as a stable-hand in the early 1950s, before becoming a licensed jockey in 1957. He won more than 2,000 races in his 20-year career as a jockey, before moving onto training in 1979. Since then, his horses have entered more than 12,000 races, winning more than 2,000 of them and earning about $40m in prizes.
He’s known for operating small stables that allow him to dedicate a lot of time to each horse. According to Coburn: “You can tell Chrome likes him, and he really loves this horse.”
Chrome’s success at the 2014 Kentucky Derby came 59 years after Art Sherman, now a great-grandfather, was an 18-year-old exercise rider for Swaps, who won in 1955. Even as a young stable-hand, he gave as much care and attention to his horse as he gives Chrome. He slept on straw in the train car with Swaps during the four-night journey from California to Kentucky.
After his Kentucky win last year, Art Sherman told reporters he had visited Swaps’s grave to say a little prayer, “and it came true”. He still describes Swaps as “such a cool horse” and “perfect to be around”. Comparing him with Chrome, he said: “They’re people kind of horses.”
Whether it’s just clever marketing or Chrome really is the People’s Horse, his Cinderella story has earned him a loyal fan base that’s known for being fiercely protective of the white-footed colt.
Fans wearing coloured plasters on their noses are a common sight at his races. According to The Sacramento Bee newspaper, fans started wearing them to show support for the horse after New York racing officials questioned his use of the strips, designed to open the nasal passages.
The ban on the strips led to a stand-off between the New York Racing Association and the horse’s owners, who threatened to pull him out of the Belmont Stakes race, the final in the American Triple Crown racing series.
The NYRA relented, but not before California’s fans began strapping plasters, preferably purple ones, to their own noses in protest against the decision. It also led to endorsement deals with the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, makers of the Breathe Right strips.
Sadly, his trusty nasal strips couldn’t help secure a win at the Belmont Stakes. His chances were dashed, unintentionally, by Matterhorn, the horse running next to him. Unbeknown at the time to his jockey, Victor Espinoza, Chrome had a chunk of his heel taken out when Matterhorn got too close to him as they broke out of the gate, and finished the race with blood dripping down his foot.
Despite starting as favourite, he finished joint fourth with Wicked Strong. If he had won, he would have joined a list of just 11 horses who have won all three Triple Crown races, the last, Affirmed, having done so in 1978.
At the Dubai World Cup tomorrow, Chrome will again be ridden by Espinoza, who himself has something of a rags-to-riches tale. He was born on a dairy farm in Mexico, and was driving a bus in Mexico City at 17 to raise money to send himself to jockey schools. In 2000, he won the Breeders’ Cup Distaff on the horse Spain; two years later, he won his first Kentucky Derby with War Emblem. He has been riding Chrome since December 2013.
Last week. Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid questioned whether the horse would have trouble riding on Meydan’s new dirt track. The Shermans didn’t seem fazed.
"I think I have watched every Dubai World Cup. Cigar was just an amazing horse and showed that you've got to bring the right horse over," Alan Sherman told The National, referring to the American horse who won the first World Cup in 1996. "They have got to have the right mint and the right constitution, and Cigar had it. We think so does Chrome."
At 9pm tomorrow, thousands of Chromies will be hoping he’s right.
munderwood@thenational.ae
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