An epic end for one epic horse
World’s richest race perfect place for California Chrome to retire
LONDON California Chrome, the highest-earning horse in American thoroughbred history, will grace a racecourse for the last time before he is retired to stud when he contests the world’s newest and richest race, the US$12-million Pegasus Cup, at Gulfstream Park in Florida on Saturday.
It has been some ride. Born of a mare that cost his original owners, Perry Martin and Steve Coburn, US$8,000 — a purchase so lampooned by one expert that they called themselves the DAP, Dumb-Ass Partners — the chestnut with distinctive white socks has gone on to win US$14.5 million and they, one presumes, have chuckled all the way to the bank.
Rags to riches scarcely does California Chrome justice and Saturday, with US$7 million for the first past the post, he could become the winningest racehorse in history, a position held by the Japanese mare Gentildonna, who clocked up US$15.3 million.
In fact, Chrome is the only non-Japanese horse in the top 13 of all-time earners.
With racehorses, it’s not always about the money and California Chrome also wins on those lines; his humble beginnings, his longserving small-time trainer Art Sherman, his comeback from injury and the fact that, with 26 starts and 16 wins, he has not exactly been wrapped in cotton wool.
The Pegasus Cup, on the other hand, really is all about the money: putting on the world’s newest race, but not the richest, would not really cut it.
It is the brainchild of racehorse owner-breeder Frank Stronach, 84, the Toronto-area businessman whose real estate business now includes a number of American racetracks, including Santa Anita, Pimlico and Gulfstream Park.
He proposed this 12-runner, $12-million race last summer. The entry fee, he decreed, would be $1 million — with a twist. You could buy an entry or invest in the race as a “stakeholder” without actually owning a horse, though the vast majority were bought by big players in American racing.
Having not been an original stakeholder, when Prince Khalid Abdullah wished to run Arrogate, who narrowly beat California Chrome in an epic Breeders’ Cup Classic in November, he had to buy his slot from Coolmore, who had coughed up $1 million but did not have a suitable horse.
Thus, stakeholders are free to strike their own deals and, should this whole concept take off, they will have first refusal for entries for next year’s race.
With Stronach’s Midas touch, it may turn out to be a wise investment — but it is unlikely to beat buying California Chrome’s dam for a dime.