Hill: Coburn All Right With Me

California Chrome co-owner Steve Coburn gives the colt a kiss after winning the Santa Anita Derby this spring. (Photos by Eclipse Sportswire)
Steve Coburn is all right with me.
He’s wrong about the Triple Crown, of course. And he’s no model of grace or sportsmanship. But he’s all right.
The reason I don’t get too worked up about Steve Coburn is this: he’s just a guy. And by that I don’t mean he’s just some schlub who works in a factory and doesn’t have to play by the same rules as his fellow racehorse owners in their fancy suits and giant-tie knots. I’m saying that Steve Coburn, same as Bobby Flay or Robert Evans or Penny Chenery or Kendall Hansen, is just a guy who bought a horse. In that respect, he isn’t really the one we are rooting for out there. He’s just a guy whose name is on a slip of paper.
I know that a lot of racehorse owners play a big role in the training and racing of their horses, much to the dismay of many trainers. I know that Mark Cuban owns the Dallas Mavericks because he likes to get involved and feel like he’s a part of the game. But let’s be honest - no matter how close Mark Cuban sits to the bench, or how many hours he spends playing PS3 in the locker room with the players or how many ridiculous trades he makes to build the team he thinks can win - at the end of the day nobody bought a ticket to watch Mark Cuban do a damn thing.
Steve Coburn’s outbursts after the Belmont Stakes were revealing on many levels. They revealed him as a sore sport, that’s true. But they also revealed that, despite his years of involvement and his possession of a once-in-a-lifetime, world-class horse, Steve Coburn didn’t really understand the sport all that well. And in his misunderstanding of the sport, he revealed something else: lots of other people didn’t understand the sport all that well, either.
COBURN AFTER THE BELMONT STAKES

I can’t tell you how many people I spoke with in the days and weeks following California Chrome’s loss in the Belmont who didn’t understand what all the hubub was over Coburn’s remarks.
“He’s right! They shouldn’t get to run in the Belmont if they didn’t run in the others!” While to you and me this argument was nothing short of bananas, to a lot of Americans (who typically only followed the Triple Crown races) it actually had a ring of common sense to it.
I think it’s easy enough to convince someone why it’s ridiculous to say the Triple Crown races should be closed events. That’s not the point here. The point is that Steve Coburn was articulating a pretty pedestrian view of racing that was pretty easy for most Americans to agree with. Add to that the fact that most of America was also just as (maybe that’s a stretch) invested in a California Chrome’s Triple Crown bid as Coburn, and you can see why people were so quick to say “it wasn’t fair!”
All of this is to say that I can understand where Coburn was coming from, if for no other reason than I saw plenty of other people nodding their heads right along with him. I mean, after all, he was just like us - a regular guy.
And despite all of his obnoxious behavior, something that isn’t at all uncommon among both owners and competitors alike in professional sports, the sport could use a few more regular guys.
COBURN AND CALIFORNIA CHROME AFTER THE PREAKNESS

Part of the reputation that horse racing should want to shake is that it is a sport that is contested between Sheikhs and tycoons and watched only by the aged or brutish. When you see a guy like Steve Coburn, warts and all, stirring up stuff on national TV, it may make you grimace. But for most of us, we just think, “oh yeah, I know a guy just like that.”
The thing that’s so incredible is that for all of us who know a Steve Coburn, we could never before believe he’d ever win the damn Derby. Now we’re all looking in the back of the Daily Racing Form for horses with $2,000 stud fees.
At the end of the day, we all have to learn how to block out the personalities and idiosyncrasies of the owner from the horse. California Chrome deserves more from Coburn, sure, but we can’t control that. But to root against California Chrome because we want to experience schadenfreude at Steve Coburn’s bad fortune? California Chrome deserves more from us.
Tomorrow, Steve Coburn brings California Chrome back to the track to race at PARX Racing in the $1-milllion Pennsylvania Derby. PARX was once called Philadelphia Park and was home base for Smarty Jones, another horse that America badly wanted to win the Triple Crown and just missed.
After Smarty Jones ran second in the 2004 Belmont Stakes, his owners announced his retirement the following August and put him out to stud. Possibly the most famous racehorse of modern times only got to run nine times before he was retired.
Coburn could hang it up now, too, if he wanted, and probably make millions. He’s instead giving the fans another chance to watch the great California Chrome before he races him in the Breeder’s Cup in six weeks. And from there, who knows?
Perhaps we will get to watch a fine racehorse develop and mature into a 4- and 5-year-old and race against all of the greats of today, possibly taking his rightful place among them. If that happens, it will be because Coburn decided he wasn’t finished with horse racing, even when most of horse racing had decided it was finished with him. 
$1-million Pennsylvania DerbySaturday, Parx Racing, Race 12, Post Time 5:40 p.m. ET1 1/8 miles, dirt, 3-year-olds

PP

Horse

Jockey

Wgt

Trainer

M-L Odds

1

California Chrome

Victor Espinoza

124

Art Sherman

1-1

2

Candy Boy

Joel Rosario

122

John Sadler

12-1

3

Protonico

Javier Castellano

122

Todd Pletcher

6-1

4

Bayern

Martin Garcia

124

Bob Baffert

7-2

5

Noble Moon

Irad Ortiz, Jr.

122

Leah Gyarmati

15-1

6

Classic Giacnroll

Kendrick Carmouche

117

Lisa Guerrero

15-1

7

Tapiture

Rosie Napravnik

122

Steve Asmussen

5-1

8

C J's Awesome

Edgar Prado

117

Kenny McPeek

12-1

WATCH THE PENNSYLVANIA DERBY AND COTILLION STAKES LIVEON AMERICASBESTRACING.NET

Saturday, Sept. 20, 4:30-6 p.m. ET