On The Cusp: California Chrome

[Ibanez]

Boy am I glad I didn't place any bets, yesterday.

[JohnStOnge]

Worst part is the owner is whining about how unfair the rules are......says all horses must run in all 3 races.......yet they let his horse run with an artificial breathing aid....MAN, don't lessen the horses accomplishments with whining!!!!

I agree. That's the way it's always been. It's part of what makes winning a Triple Crown such a great accomplishment. Yes there was a flush of them in the 70s (three) but there have only been 11 of them in history. The current drought is the longest but there were no Triple Crown winners during 1949 through 1972.

Part of it is that the horse that wins the first two has to face some horses that didn't run the first two. So don't whine about your horse not being able to overcome what previous Triple Crown winners have overcome.

Well, I don't think Secretariat raced against any horses that hadn't been in the first two. But it's pretty obvious that it wouldn't have mattered. Nobody was going to beat Secretariat in 1973 or in any other year in Triple Crown history.

[93henfan]

All you need to know about Secretariat is that he still holds the record for all three races of the Triple Crown.

[bluehenbillk]

California Chrome didn't look like a Triple Crown winner barely hanging on to win the shortest of the three races. Not sure who will run at Belmont but I see Chrome fading on the stretch...

Word.

[93henfan]

California Chrome didn't look like a Triple Crown winner barely hanging on to win the shortest of the three races. Not sure who will run at Belmont but I see Chrome fading on the stretch...

Word.

Predicting a Triple Crown failure in the ESPN era is not exactly Nostradamus-like.

[89Hen]

http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2014/ ... story.html

Steve Coburn issued an emotional apology on Monday morning, two days after his angry rant calling competitors cowards after his horse lost his bid for the Triple Crown at the Belmont Stakes.

“Very ashamed of myself,” Coburn said in an appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

“I need to apologize to a lot of people, including my wife Carolyn.” Carolyn Coburn had tried to restrain her husband from making his angry remarks in the minutes after California Chrome finished in a tie for fourth in the race won by Tonalist.

Coburn was upset that the race was won by a horse who had not completed all three legs of the Triple Crown, and he argued that only horses that compete in the first two legs should be eligible to run in the Belmont.

On Monday, Coburn said he gave full credit to Tonalist and apologized to the horse’s owners.

“Congratulations, you’ve got a fantastic horse,” he said. “And he deserved to win. He won the race fair and square.”

An embarrassed Coburn, his voice cracking at times, said he wanted to apologize to members of his own team, including trainer Art Sherman, who on Sunday had distanced himself from the owner’s comments.

Coburn said he considered California Chrome “America’s horse” and wanted the colt to win the Triple Crown that has been so elusive since its last winner, Affirmed, in 1978.

[AZGrizFan]

Why is it people just can't keep their yap traps shut?

[TheDancinMonarch]

A human being can run and win two 5000 meter races (3.2 miles) on 2 continents within a weeks time but a horse cannot run under 4 miles in 5 or 6 weeks. Hmmm. Interesting.

[YoUDeeMan]

Lots of horses have been resting...not running the Preakness, so CC will go up against some fresh legs.

That, along with the length, is the challenge.

As far as the Preakness went, CC had another perfect trip. I mean perfect. It would be good to see how he does without a perfect ride. Put a bunch of horses in front of him from the start so he has to eat dust all race and we'll see if he is worthy of the TC.

The horse has enough early speed to gain the position of stalking the early leaders, which makes a perfect trip much more likely. Unless it has a very poor start out of the gate, it should not get caught in the pack. It has run all of its races like this. The determining factor in the Belmont will be the pace of the race. If a speed horse takes CC out in quick early fractions, then I see the horse possibly fading in the stretch. A slow or moderate pace, then Chrome takes the triple crown.

Also, three weeks is plenty of rest time for thoroughbred if they came out of their previous race 100% sound. If anything, the horses with a longer layoff may not be as sharp.

CC's jockey did him no favors by going 4 wide for a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooong stretch. The Belmont isn't like the other two races...you go that wide for such a long distance and the distance adds up considerably. Plus, he pulled CC off his pace to get him wide.

Haven't watched the replay, but if I recall the initial pace wasn't that fast either. The jockey decided to let others settle directly in front (CC hasn't run well with others directly in front of him), then Espinoza, instead of waiting patiently on the inside, panicked and pulled his horse way to wide way too early.

In the end, a lot of horses were catching, passing, or extending their lead on California Chrome. CC simply wasn't a Triple Crown worthy horse...didn't have the muscle to go the extra distance.

BTW, Tonalist had a great ride. That was a big horse...looked as if he could run well for another half mile.

[89Hen]

A human being can run and win two 5000 meter races (3.2 miles) on 2 continents within a weeks time but a horse cannot run under 4 miles in 5 or 6 weeks. Hmmm. Interesting.

Oversimplification and really a non-starter. When was the last time you saw a runner break his leg in a race?

[93henfan]

This is off-topic slightly, but I was reading about Alydar, the horse who ran second to Affirmed in every race of the 1978 Triple Crown. I was not aware of his cruel ending. This stuff is even more sickening than what Michael Vick did, IMHO:


http://www.texasmonthly.com/content/killing-alydar

On November 13, 1990, Alydar appeared to have shattered his right hind leg in his stall at Calumet Farms in Lexington, Kentucky. Emergency surgery was performed the next day in an attempt to repair the injury, but the leg broke again. On November 15, Alydar was euthanized. At the time the owner of Calumet Farm was in dire trouble financially, but suspicions of foul play by the management were not raised until federal prosecutors investigated in the late 1990s. John Thomas (J.T.) Lundy was indicted and convicted in 2000 on separate but related fraud charges - bribing a bank executive for favorable loans - and served nearly four years in prison. The farm's former attorney, Gary Matthews, was also convicted and received a 21-month prison sentence. The Texas Monthly described Alydar's death as "a sweeping saga of greed, fraud, and almost unimaginable cruelty that could have been lifted straight from a best-selling Dick Francis horse-racing novel. Alydar is buried at Calumet Farm."

In Houston Federal Court, MIT Professor George Pratt testified that Alydar had to have been killed. He speculated that someone had tied the end of a rope around Alydar's leg and attached the other end of the rope to a truck that could easily have been driven into the stallion barn. The truck then took off, pulling Alydar's leg from underneath him until it snapped; he testified that the force involved was at least three times that which a horse was able to exert. About five days before Alydar's injury his original night watchman, Harold "Cowboy" Kipp, testified that he was at work on the farm when he was ordered to take Tuesday, November 13 off.