Looking to remove a smudge from the Chrome

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – American Pharoah won the Triple Crown, but it was the Horse the Year before, the horse who finished fourth in his Triple Crown bid, California Chrome, who remains the rock star.

Racing journalists literally from around the globe say any old story on Chrome still bombards their websites with cascades of hits. Tweet his name plus a photo or news of the most mundane activity, and watch the “likes” and “re-Tweets” roll in.

“You can’t believe what a popular horse he still is,” trainer Art Sherman said. “The Chromies are still out there. When I left Los Alamitos, they brought doughnuts and flowers. You can’t believe all the letters we still get from all over the world.”

But at bottom – and Sherman feels this, too – the 2014 Horse of the Year, the Derby and Preakness winner, still has something to prove when he steps onto the track Saturday night at Meydan Racecourse for the $10 million World Cup. Is this just a good horse with a compelling and occasionally soap-operatic backstory? Or is California Chrome a cut above, something closer to a Cigar, a Curlin? His last win in a truly major race came in May 2014, when he won the Preakness Stakes.

“He hasn’t really shined in a while,” Sherman said. “It would be a big feather in our caps to prove he can beat the world champions here.”

Look back at California Chrome’s past performances, peer beyond his veneer of fame, and you might find as many questions as answers. His last Grade 1 win came in December 2014, when he won the Hollywood Derby over the Canadian filly Lexie Lou, who has raced three times since without winning. Second in the Preakness was Ride On Curlin, who since then has won nothing more than an allowance race. Commanding Curve, the Derby runner-up, has finished better than fourth only once in eight subsequent starts. The best horses to come out of California Chrome’s Derby were Wicked Strong, General a Rod, and Tapiture. The best horse he ran against during the Triple Crown was Tonalist, who beat him in the Belmont.

California Chrome’s best races since the Preakness were losses, and the best race of his career, putting aside the glory of the Kentucky Derby, came in the 2014 Breeders’ Cup Classic, where he finished third, beaten a nose and a neck by Bayern and Toast of New York. He ran well enough here in the 2015 World Cup but was beaten nearly three lengths by Prince Bishop, whose best previous win had come in Round 3 of the 2014 Al Maktoum Challenge.

But things are different now. That’s what Sherman and his son Alan, who has been here with the horse since January, both insist.

“He was okay here last year, but don’t forget he’d had a tough 3-year-old year,” Alan Sherman said. “He was getting tired by the time the World Cup came around. He’s a bigger, stronger horse than he was last year.”

California Chrome, getting a perfect trip, won a slow-paced edition of the San Pasqual Stakes on Jan. 9 at Santa Anita, his first start since the World Cup. Soon after, he was shipped to Dubai, and at Meydan on Feb. 25, he won a $150,000 handicap race over 2,000 meters on dirt, the World Cup trip, by two lengths while carrying 15 pounds more than the runner-up.

“I think he’s a lot fresher horse than last year,” Alan Sherman said. “It’s a different approach, different owners, and I think it’s all good change.”

Yes, different owners. California Chrome no longer carries the silks of the Dumb Ass Partners, the novice owners Perry Martin and Steve Coburn who bought the horse’s dam, the low-level maiden claimer Love the Chase, for $8,000, bred her to the $2,500 stud Lucky Pulpit and got a Derby- and Preakness-winning champion. But by the time the flashy chestnut with the four white socks and the wide blaze got to Dubai last year, DAP drama had gone full tilt. Cloaked feuding, hushed maneuvering. No sooner had the Shermans suffered the shock of finishing second in the World Cup to a virtual unknown than they were informed by Martin, the majority owner, that California Chrome would leave Dubai not for California but for England to run at Royal Ascot. After Ascot, he was scheduled to come back to the States to run in the Arlington Million.

Art Sherman, speaking the day after the World Cup, was more concerned with his horse’s well-being than hurt by the sudden turn. He knew Chrome needed rest. And a year later, he has moved on.

“I’m trying to forget about all that, put it behind,” he said. “As a trainer, you get to where you can’t look over your shoulder.”

California Chrome never raced in England. He came up lame days before his scheduled race, a bruised foot sending him back to the U.S., but things were unlikely to have gone well in any case. If California Chrome came to Dubai needing a break, he left England a shadow of his former self, showing up at Arlington in June markedly underweight but still with designs on the Arlington Million.

That plan, though, quickly was scrapped, and for a several weeks, California Chrome existed in limbo. Then, Taylor Made Farm, where California Chrome will stand stud when he’s done racing, bought into the horse, Coburn sold his stake, and California Chrome went to Taylor Made for a good, long rest.

“They did such a great job with him on the farm,” Art Sherman said. “He gained 140 pounds.”

There’s no talk of England this year, no turf, no exotic plans. California Chrome is getting a break after Saturday’s race. The Breeders’ Cup Classic is marked down on his calendar, the Pacific Classic also penciled in more lightly. Frank Taylor of Taylor Made has been prominent in Dubai all week, and a win Saturday night would be a boon to the bet Taylor Made placed that California Chrome’s popularity and success on the track will carry the day over modest bloodlines.

That’s the business side. Art Sherman just wants to see his horse put a stamp of validation on the 2014 campaign, to take care of what was left on the table when he departed Dubai a year ago.

“That second place don’t quite get it,” Sherman said. “I’m going for the whole enchilada this time.”