We love stories about unexpected achievements, and is there a better one right now than California Chrome?
You don't need to be a sports fan to get caught up in the excitement about the California-bred colt and the two working-class couples pursuing an improbable, long-shot dream of horse racing glory.
California Chrome ran away with the Kentucky Derby two weeks ago, and he's the odds-on favorite in today's Preakness Stakes. A victory puts him one race away from claiming the first triple crown in 36 years.
OK, triple-crown chatter in May is as commonplace as big hats and mint juleps on derby day. What's extraordinary are the humble roots of California Chrome and his owners — and their success in a sport usually dominated by millionaires and billionaires.
Perry and Denise Martin own a small testing lab in Sacramento. Steve Coburn works in a Gardnerville, Nev. factory that makes magnetic strips for credit cards and driver's licenses. His wife, Carolyn, is retired.
They scraped $8,000 together to buy a racehorse named Love the Chase about six years ago. She was no champion, and neither was Lucky Pulpit, the stallion who sired California Chrome. Before the chestnut-colored horse was born, Steve Coburn says he dreamed that it would be special. He was right.
The Coburns and the Martins traveled to Lexington, Ky. for the derby, their horse's seventh victory in 11 races. But work and high air fares prevented the Martins from joining their partners in Baltimore for today's race, underscoring Steve Coburn's comment to the Sacramento Bee: "We're just everyday people."
They're the sort of folks you meet in the grandstand or while waiting to place a $2 bet, but there they are, standing in the winner's circle after the most prestigious races. Their success validates a lot of day-dreamers, and it's a testament to the people of ordinary means who race their horses far beyond the national spotlight — at smaller tracks and fairgrounds, including the one here in Santa Rosa.
It's a bitter irony that racing at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds is threatened just as California Chrome is raising the sport's profile.
In March, acting over the objections of both the racing community and Sonoma County fair officials, the California Horse Racing Board voted to give the state fair an extra week of racing at the county's expense.
The change takes effect next year, leaving the Sonoma County Fair with an unpalatable choice: Push the fair back, allowing the second week to conflict with the opening of local schools, or close the fair a week before the racing meet ends.
An experiment with a week of racing after the fair in 2010 was a financial disaster, and scheduling the fair after school starts would be, too.
The decision to shuffle the dates was made without any serious analysis of the economic impacts, which prompted legislation by Assemblymen Wes Chesbro and Marc Levine that would require the racing board to do its homework before making such changes in the future.
AB 2005 gives the Legislature greater oversight of the California Horse Racing Board, and AB 2592 mandates an economic analysis before the board substantially changes the state's fair horse racing calendar.
There's time for the board to use some horse sense and reconsider a hasty decision that will hurt a blue-collar racing venue. But it's probably safer to wager on California Chrome.
UPDATED: Please read and follow our commenting policy: