California Chrome's Brother Faversham Breaks Maiden
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Photo: Benoit Photo
Faversham is all alone at the wire June 21 at Santa Anita Park
Put in a call to trainer Art Sherman and you still hear the longing, although more than a year has passed.
"It's been kind of quiet since 'Chrome' left," Sherman said. "I still miss him."
June 21 brought relief for the octogenarian who conditioned two-time Horse of the Year California Chrome through a once-in-a-lifetime career from 2013-2017, as the Lucky Pulpit runner's full brother, Faversham, finally found his sweet spot at Santa Anita Park.
In his fifth start for Sherman, Perry and Denise Martin's sophomore runner got the monkey off his back in a $59,000 maiden special weight for California-breds when he rallied to a 3 1/4-length victory going a mile on the Santa Anita lawn. Faversham was sent off Thursday at odds of 17-1, but there were times in the chestnut ridgling's career when Sherman would have made the odds even longer for him to ever find the winner's circle.
"You don't know what I went through with this horse," the trainer said. "After being around his brother (and) training his brother, it's hard to compare them. Attitude, build—there's no real comparison. He's not a real good eater. I have to baby him along, feeding him this and that. ... With 'Chrome,' you could do anything."
California Chrome, who won the 2014 Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (G1), the Preakness Stakes (G1), and the 2016 Dubai World Cup Sponsored By Emirates Airline (G1), retired with earnings of $14,752,650 in early 2017 to Taylor Made Stallions, where his 2018 fee was advertised as $40,000. His first foals arrived this year, a little after Faversham began his career in California with high expectations and a runner-up finish going six furlongs on the dirt in January.
After he faded to eighth in the 1 1/16-mile California Cup Derby the following month, the runner with big shoes to fill came back in a mile race on the dirt in March. Wearing blinkers for the first time, he was in a good position until a horse fell in front of him and almost knocked him to the ground. Though Faversham didn't go down, Sherman said the incident shook the young horse to his core.
"He got about half shell-shocked in that race," Sherman said. "He wound up third and got placed second, but afterwards he was pretty traumatized for a while. He didn't have a lot of confidence, and it took a while to get him back to where he's just now kind of getting a little confidence in himself."
After the March incident, Sherman put Faversham on the turf in April, but he never fired and wound up ninth. The trainer found a 1 1/16-mile dirt race May 12, but Faversham finished sixth, after which he returned to the grass for his long-awaited win. California Chrome won the 2014 Hollywood Derby (G1T) at Del Mar, his lone start on turf in a 27-race career (California Chrome also made six starts and won three times on synthetic tracks).
"They run so many more turf races than they do dirt. It's hard to get a dirt race to fill," Sherman said of moving Faversham to the grass. "Everyone wants to run on the grass. I know the only time we ran Chrome on the grass, he won pretty handily, so at least I had that in the back of my mind.
"I took the blinkers off so he could see where he's going, and he seemed happy with that. I was happy with the way he ran today."
Jockey Tiago Pereira was in the irons for the first time Thursday (Faversham was ridden in four prior starts by Stewart Elliott) and moved his mount into contention after he raced in seventh through a half-mile behind the pace set by favored Clyde's Pride. Pereira angled out Faversham in upper stretch, set him down in pursuit of the fading frontrunner, and urged him home. In 1:36.26 the long-awaited win was accomplished, and Faversham returned $36.40 on a $2 win ticket.
Faversham is the fourth foal out of the Not for Love mare Love the Chase and her final foal by the late Lucky Pulpit. Purchased for $1,950,000 by John McCormack Bloodstock for SF Bloodstock at the 2016 Fasig-Tipton November Sale, Love the Chase produced a Tapit colt in 2017 and a Pioneerof the Nile colt in 2018.
"If he keeps showing improvement as he gets a little older, I think he'll be a nice horse," Sherman said. "I'm just hoping he can turn the corner now and win a first-level condition race. There's so many races for him at Del Mar, and down the road there are those 3-year-old Cal-bred stakes. He could run in one of those. We'll wait until Del Mar, and that'll be a nice little rest for him.
"I'm just so happy just to break his maiden. That's a big step, and the way he did it ... he only ran about a sixteenth of a mile, and then he just blew by them."