Tragedy and triumph:
California Chrome wins after horse deaths at Del Mar.
DEL MAR — It was a day designed to celebrate the greatness of California Chrome, the most popular horse in the world. But amid the euphoria of his stirring stretch duel with Dortmund was the underlying sadness of a sport whose harsh realities have been on display since the opening of the Del Mar meeting a week ago Friday.
Chrome delighted the crowd with his half-length victory in the $200,000 San Diego Handicap on Saturday. It was the first race for the 5-year-old Cal-bred since winning the $10-million Dubai World Cup, which made him the all-time winningest horse in North America. Dortmund gave Chrome everything he could handle over the 11⁄16-mile race, but in the end, when Chrome need a couple of late jumps to beat his rival, he answered.
Still, the backstretch talk revolved around the death of two horses Saturday, bringing the total to four since the track opened this summer. Three horses broke down during training Saturday morning and Whisky And Wine was euthanized. The other two are likely to survive. In the second race, Dutchessa was being smartly eased by jockey Joe Talamo when the horse collapsed 40 yards past the finish line. She had broken both sesamoids in her front leg. The green tarp and the white van followed to spare the crowd the sight of a horse being put to death.
This followed the opening-day death of a horse during a race and one last Sunday during training.
The track, having survived a high volume of breakdowns two years ago on its turf course, explored many options for an answer but found none. Among the trainers who canceled workouts after the breakdowns were Richard Mandella, who was supposed to work his highly respected mare Beholder; Doug O’Neill and Phil D’Amato.
“When something like that happens and you have a mare like Beholder, I can work tomorrow,” Mandella said. “Imagine how stupid I’d feel if I worked her and something happened.”
Mandella cited Karma for his decision to cancel workouts. O’Neill used the word superstition and leading trainer D’Amato said he “wanted to err on the side of caution.” All of the trainers said they have heard nothing but good things about the track and have no complaints with the surface or Del Mar.
“It’s our everyday nightmare,” said Joe Harper, president and chief executive at Del Mar. “We’re all in this business because we love horses and it affects us. Our track superintendent this morning, Stevie Woods, was crying, blaming himself even though he shouldn’t have been. I spent the morning telling him how good he was and how much confidence we have in him. These kind of things get to all of us.”
By the time the featured ninth race rolled around shortly after 6 p.m., the silence of the second race was replaced by the sounds of a rock star entering the building. The mere mention of California Chrome’s name by track announcer Trevor Denman brought loud and long cheers from the crowd of 21,336.
Chrome broke sharply in the five-horse field and was comfortable sitting off the pace in second behind Dortmund. The two circled the track in that order until just as they entered the stretch. California Chrome poked his head in front and the crowd cheered. Dortmund was game, but the 2014 horse of the year held on.
“I saved something for the end,” said winning jockey Victor Espinoza. “I have a lot of respect for Dortmund and he made me run hard. … When we came down the stretch I was concerned. This horse was carrying a lot of weight [126 pounds, compared to 121 for Dortmund]. But he was a runner all the way today.”
“They both ran terrific,” Chrome trainer Art Sherman said, wedging his way out of a winner’s circle that must have had at least 50 people in it. “Dortmund made him work for it. It’s going to be an interesting few races coming up. … [Dortmund] is a really game horse. I think both horses needed a race and you’ll see two stronger horses coming back in the Pacific Classic.”