By Louisville Courier-Journal
It was mid-afternoon in Coalinga, Calif., as 30 people jammed into a conference room best suited for eight.
The horse handlers and maintenance and office staff at Harris Farms huddled around a television, anxiously waiting to see the chestnut colt they had raised since birth take America’s grandest racing stage for the Kentucky Derby.
Dan Kiser, racing and bloodstock manager for the owners of California Chrome’s sire, was at Churchill Downs to root on the son of their stallion, Lucky Pulpit. He saw California Chrome capture the 140th Kentucky Derby by 13/4 lengths. He heard the near-record crowd’s roar. He felt the rush of victory. He burst with pride.
But it was later, watching a YouTube video of those Harris employees, that a different kind of emotion hit, as he realized that, while the program lists Steve Coburn and Perry Martin as owners, those working in anonymity on Harris Farms and at the track feel a propriety kinship with California Chrome that’s every bit as valid.
Staff watches the horse who grew up on the Central California farm. Courtesy of Harris Farms
“To watch their reaction after that horse won,” Kiser said, “that showed me how many fingerprints are on this horse to get him to where he is today.”
California Chrome, the first California-born horse to wear the roses in 52 years, flew to Baltimore on Monday to prepare for Saturday’s 139th Preakness Stakes, where he’ll attempt to take the second step toward becoming the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978.
A slew of role players will be watching, and there’s more than pride and bragging rights at stake.
For Harris Farms, there’s immeasurable free publicity and a boost for being the home of the sire of the Derby winner, who is sure to be more in demand.
The farm has raised world-class horses before, highlighted by 2000-2001 Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Tiznow, who like California Chrome was conceived, born and raised on the property. But California Chrome is the Harris’ first winner of America’s most famous race.
The racetrack crew — the groom and exercise rider — are typically given part of a percentage of the purse earnings or a cash bonus by the trainer and/or the owner. They are with the horse daily when he is racing.
“We’ve always worked as a family, a team,” said William Delgado, a former jockey and trainer who has been California Chrome’s morning rider since November and whose brother, Alberto, rode the Derby winner in his early races. “The horse belongs to Perry and Steve, but being we are the ones doing the work, it’s like he becomes part of ours. …
“Like when they ask me how he’s doing, I’m like, ‘My horse is doing good.’ ”
Out of the mare Love the Chase, whose only victory in six starts came in an $8,000 maiden-claiming race, California Chrome is the first horse the owners bred.
Boarded at Harris Farms, Love the Chase was bred to their stallion Redattore in 2009 but did not get pregnant. Coburn and Martin wanted to breed her back to Redattore the next year, but the stallion did not return from his off-season stint breeding mares in Brazil.
Instead Love the Chase was mated with Lucky Pulpit, who was bred, raced and continues to be owned by Larry and Marianne Williams of Parma, Idaho. The Williamses and Kiser, who runs their Tree Top Ranches in the Boise Valley where their racehorses are raised and get their early training, were among those who came to Louisville to root for California Chrome.
“Everything in this story, there are so many little twists of fate,” Kiser said. “People making the right decisions, but also there’s a tremendous amount of luck that guided those decisions.”
MORE CALIFORNIA CHROME:
No Kentucky farms were interested in Lucky Pulpit as a stallion. He had an undistinguished racing career, and the Williamses were advised they might get $5,000 to $10,000 for him to be a stud overseas. Instead, Harris Farms’ owner John Harris, with a long-time relationship with the Williamses, agreed to add Lucky Pulpit to his stallion band, his stud fee set at $2,500 (but going up for 2015).
It was a difficult foaling for Love the Chase — California Chrome apparently drug a hoof on his way out, causing the mare to hemorrhage.
California Chrome spent much of his first two years at Harris Farms and pastures at River Ranch. Early on, he was “brought along and handled” with extra care while his mother was recuperating from his birth, said Dave McGlothlin, general manager of horse operations at the farm.
“He’d test the grooms, the handlers periodically, but for the most part he was cooperative and inquisitive,” McGlothlin said. “He picked up what he was supposed to do pretty readily. And I think that carried on into training. He was a quick study.”
California Chrome was sent to the racetrack and trainer Art Sherman in March 2013, making his first start that April — the earliest for a Derby winner since Foolish Pleasure in 1975.
Others have had a hands-on relationship with the colt since he started racing. Alan Sherman, who has worked for his dad since 1991, stayed with California Chrome in Kentucky while Art Sherman returned to California after the Derby.
Raul Rodriguez, the Derby winner’s groom and the stable’s foreman, has worked for the Shermans for 15 years — as has his wife, brother and sister-in-law and now their children.
“We have pretty much the whole family working for us, and they do an outstanding job,” Alan Sherman said. “Raul’s wife, we call her Mama — because she’s like the mother hen out there. Talk about never stop working. She’s constantly cleaning or doing something, feeds us. If she’s cooking something, she won’t just ask us to eat, she makes us eat.
“And Willie really gets along with this horse well. He lets the horse do his thing, doesn’t discourage him in any way. The owners, obviously they’re the big part of it, they bred the horse. But everyone around the horse is doing a great job.”
For California’s breeding and racing industries, there couldn’t be a better endorsement.
And there’s Los Alamitos, the quarter horse track in Orange County that will have two short meets of major thoroughbred racing this year. The Shermans moved their base from Hollywood to Los Al, with California Chrome a living billboard for training at the track.
“It’s huge for us,” said Doug Burge, a native Louisvillian who is the long-time president of the California Thoroughbred Breeders Association. “… It just really validates what we strive to put out there for people breeding and racing in California.
“It shows a good horse can come from anywhere, if the horse has the heart and desire and is put in the right hands. Out here, it gives everybody the sense that ‘it could happen to me.’ “