Fairy-tale finish or another letdown?

ELMONT, N.Y. – Perry Martin studied pedigrees for months, finally deciding that the sire Lucky Pulpit would be the best match for the mare Love the Chase.
Days before Love the Chase gave birth, Steve Coburn dreamed that she’d produce a chestnut colt, with a blaze and four white socks.

Before that colt ever ran, Martin sent an email to trainer Art Sherman outlining the road to the Kentucky Derby.

The California Chrome saga has featured a recipe of studious logic, devout faith, and enthusiastic naivete. It has yielded delicious results for Sherman and owners Martin and Coburn, including wins in the Derby and the Preakness Stakes.

It’s the fairy tale that came true. The glass slipper fit. Villanova beat Georgetown in basketball. The USA beat the Russians in hockey. Do you believe in miracles? Yes!

“I’ve got to pinch myself,” Sherman said. “Wow, what a run this has been.”

It’s not over yet. Fantasy meets reality on Saturday in the 146th Belmont Stakes here at Belmont Park, where California Chrome tries become the 12th Triple Crown winner and end a 36-year drought.

Based on what has happened since 1978, the odds seem stacked against California Chrome. Since Affirmed became the 11th Triple Crown winner, 12 horses prior to California Chrome won both the Derby and Preakness. Eleven of them tried to also win the Belmont. All failed.

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Yet California Chrome has spent his entire life defying the odds. Coburn and Martin were called “dumb-asses” for spending $8,000 to acquire the slow mare Love the Chase. She seemed much more likely to have produced a maiden claimer than a horse a race away from racing immortality. People can spend millions for a horse who can’t run. And sometimes they can spend thousands for a horse who can run like the wind. It’s what makes the game so tantalizing.

“It could have been anybody, but he was born to us, and we’re blessed for that,” Coburn said.

When Sherman got that email from Martin, he laughed. Having been employed in the sport for 60 years, he’s a realist.

“I thought, Wow, they have big dreams,” he said.

As the dream has become reality, Sherman hasn’t been one to tempt fate. Got to stick with what works. Before the Derby, a fan sent Sherman what was described as a “lucky dollar” bill. It hasn’t left his money clip since. Sherman wore the same suit for the Preakness that he wore for the Kentucky Derby, and he’ll wear it again for the Belmont.

Since joining forces with jockey Victor Espinoza and being fitted with a nasal strip suggested by Martin, California Chrome has won six straight races.

Nothing has stopped him. He didn’t work at Churchill Downs before the Derby. No problem. He didn’t work between the Derby and Preakness. No problem.
He had an insignificant cough days before the Preakness that assistant Alan Sherman, Art’s son, assured was no problem. It was no problem. Less than 48 hours after the Preakness, New York racing officials snuffed out a possible problem by allowing California Chrome and any other horse to wear a nasal strip.

And since his arrival here at Belmont Park, California Chrome has given every indication that he is maintaining his good form. As the week has progressed, so has the tempo of his gallops, mirroring how he looked training in the days leading up to the Derby and the Preakness.

But he still has to do it, run the longest race of his life, 1 1/2 miles, against 10 others, at the end of a grueling campaign that will see him run his most-recent four races at four tracks in four states in the space of nine weeks, including a Triple Crown grind that demands three races in five weeks.

“There’s gonna be a target on his back,” Art Sherman said. “That’s the way it is. I’m sure everybody knows they can’t let him have his own way, or they can’t beat him.”

As the weeks have progressed, Sherman has grown more confident that California Chrome can pull it off.

“I think he’s the real McCoy,” he said. “I think people running against him have to worry about him, not me worrying about the others. I feel good about it. I really do.”

The Belmont is the 11th race on a 13-race card that begins at 11:35 a.m. Eastern. It anchors a spectacular program of racing, resembling a Breeders’ Cup. Preceding it are eight graded stakes races, five of them Grade 1, including the star-studded Ogden Phipps, with the outstanding fillies Beholder, Close Hatches, and Princess of Sylmar. Also to be run Saturday is the repositioned Met Mile, with last year’s Belmont winner, Palace Malice, and Goldencents, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile.

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The card will be viewed by an ontrack crowd expected to be more than 100,000, as well as a large television audience on NBC, which airs the Belmont during a telecast that begins at 4:30 p.m. Post time for the Belmont is 6:52 p.m. Pre-race coverage, including three stakes, will be shown on NBCSN beginning at 2:30 p.m. Between NBCSN and NBC, every Grade 1 race is scheduled to be shown.

The weather should be ideal. Rain that pelted the track early Thursday was forecast by The Weather Channel to be gone by Thursday afternoon, and both Friday and Saturday are supposed to be dry, with a high on Saturday of 83 degrees.

California Chrome trained Thursday morning in the rain, but before the worst of it hit. He schooled in the starting gate, and acted perfectly, showing no propensity to rock back and forth, which he often does before a race.

“He’s cool, he’s cool,” Art Sherman said while observing the schooling session.

Perhaps that will change on Saturday, when California Chrome enters stall 2 of a starting gate that will be parked right on front of a packed grandstand with zealous fans wanting to will him home.

The Shermans hope California Chrome can do it, but say they won’t despair if he doesn’t. Art Sherman has frequently said California Chrome “owes us nothing,” a theme Alan Sherman reiterated Thursday.

“Everything from here on out is a bonus,” Alan Sherman said. “It’s been an amazing ride.”

For this Triple Crown, there is one last ride to go. Twelve furlongs. One lap around Belmont Park.

“If it’s meant to be,” Art Sherman said, “it’s meant to be.”