California Chrome Owner: Belmont Winner Took 'Coward's Way Out'

Breitbart News ^ | June 7, 2014 | Breitbart California

[This Just In]

On Saturday, after California Chrome lost his chance to become horse racing's first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978, co-owner Steve Coburn went off during a post-race interview, saying it's a "coward's way out" for owners to only run their horses in one of the three Triple Crown races.

[trebb]

You can’t compare a ball game to a horse race. A horse race is a race. A ball game is a sport in which teams are playing at bats and on the field through 9 or more innings. You have 9 players on the field. The object of the game is to out-pitch, out-bat, outperform and outscore the opposing team. In horse racing, you have a jockey and a racehorse. Whoever crosses the finish line first in each race wins. Apples and oranges, my friend.

Both sides are acceptable - if the horse was truly spectacular, it might well have won. On the flip side, nobody can tell if the previous race might have taken some small bit out of it and it may have won this race if it hadn't competed in the last race. Apples and oranges are sometimes related.

[ratzoe]

Coburn is just the latest to go from America’s sweetheart to the devil and the media will have a field day with this. He knew damn well that there is no requirement for any Triple Crown horse to run all 3 races, he has a horrible case of sour grapes. The media likes nothing better than to build someone up and then totally destroy them. (re..Tiger Woods, among others). Read all the stories prior to the Belmont glorifying him and now we will get a week’s worth of how he purposely ran over a turtle in the road once and ripped the tags off all his mattresses..Heat of the moment comments to the media are their bread and butter.

[Bigg Red]

Unbecoming.

(((
I agree. I don’t follow horse racing — or any sport, for that matter. But I do know that nobody likes a sore loser. Even if what he says is true, he should just accept his loss with dignity.

[Holen1]

I guess “Dumb-Ass” is an apt name after all.

[Lizavetta]

we will get a week’s worth of how he purposely ran over a turtle in the road once and ripped the tags off all his mattresses

LOL

[SamAdams76]

Racing horses is wrong in my opinion. I'm no tree-hugging PETA type, I just think it's demeaning to the animals. If people want to have a road race, throw on a pair of sneakers and use your own body to run a race. And those jockeys are kind of strange - there's just something a little bit...off - with them.

As for the current controversy, didn't this Google Chrome horse come in fourth? So the horse would have lost the race anyhow it appears to me.

[aumrl]

I agree Aria (17)
But C C finished fourth.
How many of the three ‘money’ horses did or did not enter the first two ‘jewels’?

[aumrl]

got that right

Citation 2nd?

[Mears]

As the kids would say-”What a dork!”.

.

[vharlow]

I felt California Chrome was whipped by his inside post position, and the jockeys. They do this. They blocked him when he wanted to run. They are always a factor, and they want a cut of that purse for themselves. Today, I saw a picture of a bad cut on Chrome’s foot, so he may very well have also been hurting. Looked like he got slightly bumped coming out of the gate, and that may have hurt his foot. I’m hoping he comes to Saratoga for the Travers, but his owners attitude will probably keep him in California. Pity that.

[jpsb]

Times change, the Triple Crown schedule requires a horse to race once every two weeks. Back in the day racing with only two weeks rest was not uncommon. Today it is practically unheard of. Look at the schedule great horses (Kelso, Forego) of the past had. No trainer today would even think about such a schedule for their horses. 2 reasons, Today's thoroughbreds (USA) are bred for speed not endurance. A hard race takes a lot out of a horse and the horse requires more then 2 weeks to recover from the effort. Then the horse needs to be trained up to it's top performance level about a 6 week effort for a modern USA Thoroughbred. The great 3yos of today race 6 or 7 times in a season. Forego as a 3 year old raced 18 times. Many of those races were handicaps where Forego carried a lot more weight then the other older horses. I am getting carried away about my all time favor racehorse Forego

see him in action Forego wins marlboro " Arguably, the greatest performance ever outside of Secretariat's Belmont. Forego carrying 137 pounds and Honest Pleasure, a phenomenal 3-year-old, carrying only 119. Incredible!

Forego is the great uncle to one of my other favorite racehorses Zenyatta. If you've never seen Zenyatta in action treat yourself to her greats hits

[vharlow]

Horses were born to run! It’s what they love to do. Jockeys are possibly the toughest athletes on earth, and they risk their lives every day loving it! I have more respect for them any day than lots of other athletes with big names and huge salaries. They work hard, and compete for every cent they earn.

[Vinnie]

the horses aren't wiped out by the RACE, but by the effects of the medication, especially Lasix.

Demand for beer that high, huh?

[MD Expat in PA]

Secretariat was a unique racehorse champion. Inspiring story.

Secretariat was not only the greatest race horse of the 20th century, if not of all time, but he is also considered one of the greatest “athletes” of the 20th century.

And Secretariat beat Sham, who also ran in all three of the Triple Crown races and was no slouch as a race horse in his own right. Of course a lot of credit has to go to his owner Penny Chenery and his trainer Lucien Laurin and his jockey Ron Turcotte.

But the most amazing thing about Secretariat was not just his incredible speed and coming from dead last to win in many races, but that he knew he was a winner, loved winning and he loved the attention and the spot light.

In the Belmont, his great lead early on in that race was to some of the experts, even his owner and trainer, a big mistake, some thinking “he’s running too fast”, that he’d break down before the race was finished but he just kept going and going and going.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klP5dwGh88U

[Tula Git]

"Secretariat won the KY Derby and Preakness in record times and went on to win the Belmont by 21 lengths. When you talk about great horses you think of War Admiral, Seabisquit, Citation and then the greatest of them all...Secretariat."

31 Lengths, but who's counting.

Secretariat was by far the greatest horse ever, IMO. And there was a reason he won the Belmont by an unbelievable distance. He had a heart that was literally twice the size of normal. This was found out at the autopsy when he died.

Even with this huge physical advantage, Secretariat lost a very important race due to injury just before the Derby. The injury??? A mouth blister.

The reason I point this out is that Chrome had a foot/hoof injury at the start of the Belmont race. The owner and trainer knew it. They ran him anyway. At the end of the race his foot was bleeding. In spite of this he was in the race till the final furlong.

I would put more emphasis on this, along with the questionable strategy of his jockey, as a cause for his failure to win.

One thing I think everyone agrees on, the owner did not compliment himself with his behavior after the race. Even if he thought it, he shouldn't have said it.

[dfwgator]

Maybe they need to train horses differently.

[bert]

——Secretariat was by far the greatest horse ever——

Was Secretariat great or was the field just mediocre, poor?

[jjotto]

Seriously?

I think Secretariat’s Triple Crown races times are still standing records.

[Chesterbelloc]

Was Secretariat great or was the field just mediocre, poor?

The winning time yesterday was 2:25.52 and Secretariat won the Belmont in 2:24. I did a quick online search and each second is equal to roughly 5 lengths. So assuming conditions were the same, Secretariat would have won yesterday's race by 20 lengths.

[Chesterbelloc]

Typo — yesterday’s winning time was 2:28.52