Surprise Favorite

(Photo: Benoit Photo)

SI has a nice article on the strange path to Derby favorite for California Chrome. This is pretty amazing:

The horse, a 2-year-old filly named Love the Chase, was both small and slow (though apparently quite sweet) and hence the full syndicate eventually decided to divest itself of ownership. But the two guys both liked her. They insist -- in that dreamy manner that exists only at the racetrack and other places where common sense is secondary to dreams -- that they saw something. They bought Love the Chase for $8,000. A groom at the filly's barn had said that anybody who would actually pay money for the horse was a dumb-ass, so Steve Coburn and Perry Martin shook hands and agreed on the spot to name their nascent operation Dumb-Ass Partners.
A little while later they bred the filly to a 10-year-old stallion named Lucky Pulpit, whose breeding rights were selling for about $2,000. They saw something in him too. From this coupling came a colt with four white feet and a giant white blaze on his chestnut face, born on a rare rainy afternoon in California's drought-ravaged San Joaquin Valley, a place better known for growing almonds and olives than champion thoroughbreds. The colt seriously injured his mother while leaving the womb by dragging his crooked right forefoot across the wall of her uterus and spilling her blood on the floor of the foaling barn. Once he was taught to run and given the name California Chrome, Coburn and Martin sent him to a septuagenarian trainer who had once slept on hay bails in a railway car next to Swaps when the colt made the trip from Los Angeles to Louisville before his victory in the 1955 Kentucky Derby. Now, for the first time in nearly 60 years, Art Sherman, 77, is going back to the Derby. And he's going with the likely favorite.

The change in fortunes for Dumb-Ass Partners is also pretty extreme:

Some people aren't wondering at all about Chrome's authenticity; they are chasing it with their wallets. Before the Santa Anita Derby, Coburn and Martin say that they were offered $6 million for the horse. They refused. Two hours later the same buyer returned offering $6 millon for 51 percent of California Chrome and full control over all decisions. Again, they refused. Another group wanted a 25 percent stake in California Chrome for $1.1 million. Somebody else offered $2.1 million for Love the Chase. Coburn and Martin said no to everything. Offers have continued since then, growing in size and providing the two men with multiple chances to lock in millions on a $10,000 investment. They have continued to say no, a massive gamble on a horse who might never be more valuable. Coburn's spin is lyrical: "What kind of price tag can you put on a dream?" he says.
Martin is more pragmatic. "First of all, this means a lot to Art," said Martin. "But I also think people are low-balling us just to do a deal with two guys who supposedly don't have any money. At least I keep hearing that's what we are." (Both owners placed Derby future-book bets on California Chrome: Coburn got $1,000 down at 200-1 in January, the same month that Martin's daughter, Kelly, 26, made a trip to Las Vegas with friends and made a total of $500 in bets at odds ranging from 175-1 to 275-1.)

That is one of the things that makes thoroughbred racing so fascinating.  Good luck to California Chrome and the other horses who have defied the odds and will line up in the starting gate on Saturday.