By Bloodhorse.com
NEWMARKET, Great Britain (Apr. 27, 2015) — For three weeks after California Chrome landed in England, the weather gods smiled. It was almost as if they decreed he should be drenched in his own sunshine.
Newmarket can present a hostile environment in this part of the season. Winds whistle in from the North Sea to the east, unchecked by flat terrain. The Thoroughbred capital of the country may be 40 miles inland, but it can feel like a Siberian outpost.
Not this time. Temperatures soared to unseasonal highs as the darling of American racing flew in from Dubai. There was little climatic contrast for him to adjust to as he bedded down in Rae Guest’s stables on the southern edge of Newmarket.
But on the morning of April 25, when California Chrome was asked to raise his exercise tempo, the rains arrived. It made a portent of things to come for the horse with designs on Royal Ascot and the June 17 Prince of Wales’s Stakes (Eng-I).
The sunshine siesta was over. It was time to return to work.
The 4-year-old chestnut was certainly up for it. As he followed his lead horse around Guest’s trotting ring, he was full of swagger. He resembled a prize fighter in shadow-boxing mode.
But that wasn’t how he looked when he arrived in Newmarket a few days after he ran second to Prince Bishop in the Mar. 28 Dubai World Cup (UAE-I). “He was very thin then,” Guest says. “He looks a lot better now.”
That draining effort in Dubai took its toll on Chrome. For the first two weeks he did little but sleep. He was hand-walked every morning around Guest’s stables and allowed to recharge his batteries. The question now is whether he can wow British audiences as he has back home.
“It’s very sporting for his connections to bring him over,” Guest says. “He could have been winning $500,000 every month in America but he wouldn’t really have enhanced himself. Now he has the chance to get into the history books.”
It will not be easy. California Chrome may be the reigning Horse of the Year and last year’s 3-year-old champion male who came close to winning the Triple Crown. He may have bankrolled in excess of $5 million, but to give of his best at Royal Ascot, before the Queen of England and thousands of expectant eyes, the California-bred son of Lucky Pulpit must first go back to school.
Chromies everywhere should consider that the learning curve is steep. The sole taste of home for this equine warrior is the sacks of horse cookies dispatched in abundance by doting American fans.
Everything else is new—not least the wide-open spaces of Newmarket Heath, where King James I built the town’s first royal palace in the early seventeenth century.
On this morning California Chrome reached it via a strip of woodland at the back of Guest’s Chestnut Tree Stables. All he could see was thousands of acres of grassland stretching out in every direction. It’s a world away from the backstretch at Los Alamitos racetrack, where the horse exercises every morning when at home.
He was led for a mile by Montecristo, Guest’s trusty old hack, seemingly going nowhere but for a pleasant morning stroll. From our vantage point the two horses were like distant ships, barely moving, far out at sea.
When California Chrome peeled away from his lead he covered seven furlongs at a brisk canter. In his time Montecristo won 18 races for Guest, but he is now 22 years old. He couldn’t be expected to match strides with Chrome, no matter how sedate the pace.
Read more on BloodHorse.com: http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/91583/california-chrome-adjusting-to-newmarket#ixzz3YXHQGORJ