Hovdey: Coming up short of the Royal treatment

How soon they forget. Los Alamitos Race Course is no longer the “Home of Chrome,” as banners and marquees proudly proclaimed in the thrill of the 2014 season. California Chrome is long gone, heading from England to Chicago when last heard from, and now the name in Los Alamitos lights is American Pharoah, as in “American Pharoah Trained Here!”

“That’s to be expected,” California Chrome’s trainer, Art Sherman, said with a sigh. “After all, it looks like Chrome may never be in California again. And any place that can lay a little claim to Bob’s colt should be doing that, like ‘George Washington slept here.’ ”

“Bob,” of course, is Baffert, who had American “Triple Crown” Pharoah at Los Alamitos for a brief period a year ago as a 2-year-old getting ready to run, around the same time California Chrome was unwinding from his own Triple Crown near miss. If they ever crossed paths, no one noticed, though if the stars align just right, they still might meet Oct. 31 at Keeneland in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. But that’s getting way ahead of the story.

On Tuesday, Sherman was back in harness at Los Alamitos after his bittersweet trip to England. It was one of those, “So, Mrs. Lincoln, other than that, did you enjoy the play?” kind of trips, since his purpose for going – to bask in the appearance of California Chrome in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes on the Wednesday of the Royal Ascot meet – was spoiled when the colt came up with a sore foot 48 hours before the race.

“I was disappointed they didn’t get to see him run,” the trainer said. “But when I saw that course they run the race over, with that long uphill finish, I thought, ‘Holy cow!’ I wasn’t sure he was quite ready for that.”

Sherman did not say “cow,” but you get the meaning. California Chrome’s not-so-excellent British adventure always felt out of sync, from the last-minute, seat-of-the-pants arrangements made with Newmarket trainer Rae Guest at the Dubai World Cup, to the long stretch of time without anyone from the Sherman stable setting eyeballs on the colt, to the less-than-glowing reports of the colt’s Newmarket training that had local observers bending over backward to say something polite, like, “What a lovely horse, and such a nice mover, but a bit light on condition for the task, don’t you think?”

Seasoned traveler that he is, Sherman made the most of his journey. While his wife, Faye, hied herself off to London with friends, the trainer stuck close to California Chrome and waded into the horsey pleasures of Newmarket, the center of the British Thoroughbred universe. If he had taken slides, these would have been the highlights:

 Here’s Art at the Bedford Lodge Hotel, at loose ends, wandering past a room full of revelers who turn out to be the John Gosden stable staff in celebration of Golden Horn’s victory in the Epsom Derby. Sherman did not need to be asked twice to join in.

 Here’s Art, having given English cuisine an honest try, finding a Chinese restaurant to call his own and eating there four nights running.

 Here’s Art at Prince Khalid Abdullah’s Banstead Manor Stud savoring a private audience with Frankel, the undefeated, two-time European Horse of the Year. “What a gorgeous stallion he is,” Sherman said. “And so classy.”

 Here’s Art on the Newmarket gallops, three days before the hoof bruise, to watch William Buick ride California Chrome in a brisk work. “He left his company pretty easy and went to pricking his ears,” Sherman said. “The jock told me he really liked the way the colt moved over the ground, and I don’t think he was just telling me what I wanted to hear. They know they can’t get away with that with a trainer who’s been a rider.”

Even without a horse to run, Sherman and his entourage were determined to enjoy their Royal Ascot experience. Majority owner Perry Martin had sprung for a ticket to get Chrome’s groom, Raul Rodriguez, in England for the event, and there he was, in a gray morning coat and topper to match, looking every bit the distinguished gent.

“I was introducing him as the mayor of Guadalajara,” Sherman said. “He loved it.”

At one point, Sherman was intercepted by that whirling dervish Willie Carson, the five-time British riding champ. Carson, who is 72 to Sherman’s 78, came right at Sherman with a blast from the past.

“That international race we rode in at Bay Meadows,” Carson said. “You’re the guy who shut me off that day, you sonofabitch.”

They could hear the cackling in the queen’s box.

It will take a while for Sherman to erase the memory of that Monday morning before the festival began, when he watched as California Chrome came out of his stall dead lame and pointing his toe.

“I felt my heart just sink inside me,” Sherman said, touching his shirtfront.

But it was only a bruise, and soon California Chrome will be heading to Chicago, where he will have Rodriguez and Sherman assistant Anna Wells on site as he trains for a possible start in the Arlington Million. In the meantime, if there is one image Sherman will always hold dear, it was his 2014 Horse of the Year in a full-throttle exercise up one of the storied Newmarket gallops where Frankel and so many other English champions did their work.

“It got to me a little bit,” Sherman said. “What a beautiful sight he was.”