The Chosen Vron undisputed star of the California Cup

ARCADIA, Calif. – Although the annual registered foal crop in California has declined 60 percent in the past 15 years, the state still produces an occasional jewel, including a gem who launches his 2024 campaign Saturday at Santa Anita.

The Chosen Vron, winner of 13 stakes, is the star of Saturday’s five-stakes California Cup program for statebreds. The popular gelding figures as the most heavily fancied runner on the card and is odds-on to win the $150,000 Don Valpredo California Cup Sprint. Everyone loves The Chosen Vron.

“He’s by far the most popular horse I’ve ever been associated with,” trainer Eric Kruljac said. “Let’s hope the ball keeps rolling.”

It’s been rolling for more than three seasons. Now 6 years old, The Chosen Vron has won 14 of 19 starts, earned $1,149,678, and last year rose to the top of the California sprint division by winning the Grade 1 Bing Crosby at Del Mar. The leading earner by the late California stallion Vronsky, The Chosen Vron seeks his second win in the six-furlong Cal Cup Sprint.

His chief rival is speedster Brickyard Ride, whose eight stakes wins include the 2021 and 2022 Cal Cup Sprint. Brickyard Ride is 7, and trainer Craig Lewis acknowledged “he’s lost a step, but he’s still a moneymaker. He’s not what he was, but he’s still damn good.”

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Brickyard Ride will try to steal the race; the five-runner field also includes Moose Mitchell, Geezer, and Principe Carlo.

Wagering value is minimal in the Cal Cup Sprint, race 8, and also in the five-runner $200,000 California Chrome California Cup Derby, race 4, with Wild Jewels. Three other stakes may offer value.

Asada Fries could upset Grand Slam Smile in the $200,000 Leigh Ann Howard California Cup Oaks, race 5. Dazzling allowance winner Stay and Scam faces Rose Maddox in the $150,000 Sunshine Millions Filly and Mare Turf Sprint, race 7. Kings River Knight is a tepid choice in a deep edition of the $200,000 Unusual Heat Turf Classic, race 9.

The Chosen Vron, Brickyard Ride, and Kings River Knight prove that California breeders still produce top horses even while the industry has contracted. According to The Jockey Club, California’s registered foal crop dropped from 3,320 in 2006, to 1,314 in 2021, the most recent year reported. Despite the 60 percent decline, California-bred graded winners in 2023 and early 2024 include Closing Remarks, Ceiling Crusher, Daddysruby, Slow Down Andy, and Chismosa.

But no California-bred currently training is better than The Chosen Vron, whose seven starts in 2023 produced six stakes wins, including the Bing Crosby, and a Breeders’ Cup Sprint fifth. The campaign was ambitious.

“He doesn’t seem any worse for the wear,” Kruljac said this week after The Chosen Vron worked a half-mile. Kruljac said the gelding “is training great, and after [Saturday] we’ll get an idea of our options going forward. We might just bop along through the Cal-bred races.”

It worked from late 2022 all the way through 2023. The Chosen Vron won eight straight stakes prior to the BC Sprint, and two weeks later won the Cary Grant Stakes at Del Mar. That was Nov. 18; the Cal Cup is his first start since. Jockey Hector Berrios believes he is ready.

“He’s very easygoing, very relaxed,” Berrios said Monday after the work. “He makes everything easy, he’s all professional.”

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The Chosen Vron is the star of the California Cup.

Filly and Mare Turf Sprint

Multiple stakes winners Rose Maddox and Chancery Way enter the $150,000 Sunshine Millions Filly and Mare Turf Sprint in top form, but the eight-runner field includes a lightly raced 4-year-old filly who dazzled last out.

Stay and Scam crushed an entry-level allowance turf sprint at Del Mar, winning the five-furlong race by more than four lengths with a 95 Beyer Speed Figure that tops the Saturday field. If she runs two alike, which her works suggest she will, Stay and Scam can win the turf sprint.

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