Million next for recuperating Chrome

CYPRESS, Calif. – California Chrome has shown improvement from a foot abscess in recent days that prevented a start in Wednesday’s Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot in England and is tentatively scheduled to return to the United States in early July.

Trainer Art Sherman said on Friday at Los Alamitos Race Course that he has been in contact with majority owner Perry Martin and that the Arlington Million at Arlington Park on Aug. 15 is a summertime goal for California Chrome, the 2014 Horse of the Year.

Sherman, who returned from England on Thursday, said that California Chrome’s right front foot has improved to the extent that the 4-year-old colt is being walked at trainer Rae Guest’s stable at Newmarket. California Chrome has been based with Guest since early April, following a second-place finish in the $10 million Dubai World Cup at Meydan Racecourse in the United Arab Emirates on March 28 in his most recent start.

Sherman traveled to England earlier this month to oversee California Chrome’s final training before the Prince of Wales’s Stakes, only to have the plans derailed by the abscess.

California Chrome missed the Prince of Wales’s Stakes after the abscess was detected on Monday. Sherman said that as of Friday, the abscess had yet to be relieved, but that California Chrome’s overall condition was better.

“The foot is getting better,” Sherman said. “He’s walking on it, but the abscess hasn’t come to a head. It will take time. As soon as it comes to a head, it will drain, and he’ll be in good shape.”

Sherman said California Chrome is tentatively scheduled to be sent to Arlington Park on July 6 or 7, assuming that he has recovered from the abscess and can travel. California Chrome will need to undergo quarantine before he can begin training at Arlington Park.

California Chrome, co-owned by Martin and Steve Coburn, has won 9 of 18 starts and earned $6,322,650. He is best known for winning the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes in 2014 before finishing fourth in an attempt at the Triple Crown in the Belmont Stakes.

Sherman attended Wednesday’s races at Royal Ascot and watched the Prince of Wales’s Stakes with heightened interest. Free Eagle, the 5-2 favorite, held off a late surge from The Grey Gatsby to win by a short head.

Sherman said Ascot’s layout, with an uphill finish, would have been a tough assignment for California Chrome.

“He’d have been in the money,” Sherman said. “But to go a mile and a quarter on that course, I don’t know. You better have a fit sucker.”