Chrome’s Turf Triumph Again Ignites Memories of Swaps
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California Chrome wins the Hollywood Derby in his first turf try. (Photo by Benoit Photo)
California Chrome was back in the winner’s circle last weekend with his decisive win in the Grade 1 Hollywood Derby at Del Mar. The victory was notable for being Chrome’s first try on turf, though detractors are arguing that he beat a short field of lesser competitors and it shouldn’t vault him ahead in the race for Horse of the Year.
While trainer Art Sherman has expressed hope that Chrome will still get Horse of the Year honors, that wasn’t his primary reason for sending the horse to Del Mar to run in the Hollywood Derby. He said that he wanted to get a look at the horse on turf because an affinity for the surface would open a lot of possibilities for the Chrome next year.
The great news there is that DAP Racing plans to run California Chrome as a 4-year-old. The even better news is that California Chrome could compete as an older male on multiple surfaces, a rare sight in the sport these days at the top levels.
California Chrome was not the first Kentucky Derby winner to race on the turf. There have been 13 horses in the last 35 years, including California Chrome, to do so either before or after their Derby win. But of those 13 horses, only five have ever won on turf, including Animal Kingdom and Big Brown who both won turf stakes after winning the Kentucky Derby. Animal Kingdom raced for two more years on dirt, turf and synthetic surfaces at tracks on multiple continents.
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Photo by Eclipse Sportswire
One Kentucky Derby winner who went on to win on the grass that is of particular note is California Chrome’s distant relative and fellow-Californian Swaps, who appears twice in the first five generations of the pedigree of Chrome’s dam, Love the Chase.
One of the main storylines of the 2014 Triple Crown was Sherman’s connection to Swaps. He was 18 years old when he accompanied Swaps in a boxcar from California to Louisville to win the 1955 Kentucky Derby and Sherman returned to the Derby in 2014 at the age of 77.
Like California Chrome, Swaps was a longshot for Horse of the Year honors despite his Kentucky Derby win. He had missed the Preakness and Belmont, won by his rival Nashua, and was trying to win back the respect of the racing fans and Horse of the Year voters with a comeback race on an unfamiliar surface. Swaps entered the very same race as California Chrome, then called the Westerner Stakes and run at Hollywood Park. Swaps faced a similar small field of five horses. The Associated Press even described them as “cream puffs”. The track didn’t allow any bets but win bets and Swaps was an astounding 1-to-20 odds. He won the race convincingly, by six lengths, but it could have been as many as 12 or more if jockey Willie Shoemaker hadn’t stood up in the irons and eased the horse in the stretch.
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Swaps followed that win up with a victory in the American Derby, another turf race, this time beating Traffic Judge, who was far from a cream puff, and setting a new track record. Ten days later Swaps would lose to Nashua in an infamous match race and eventually lose Horse of the Year to him as well.
While it isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison, what’s exciting about Swaps’s story is that he came back in 1956 as a 4-year-old and cleaned house at his home base of Hollywood Park. He won five races in seven weeks and set three world records. He easily took Horse of the Year honors over Nashua in 1956 and retired with a record of 19 wins in 25 races.
Perhaps California Chrome’s victory over a handful of cream puffs in the 2014 Hollywood Derby won’t be enough to vault him into first place for Horse of the Year this year. But given Sherman’s guarantee that we will see the horse in action next year and his many options of stakes to target, 2015 looks bright for California Chrome.