California Chrome has taken in stride a 13,400-kilometre, 19-hour journey from Los Angeles to the UAE ahead of next Saturday’s Dubai World Cup, his assistant trainer says.
America’s horse of the year arrived in Dubai, via the Janah equine transport firm, with 15 other American runners, all of whom are required to remain in international quarantine for 48 hours.
All runners have access to a training track there, and California Chrome is likely to have had a leg stretch at 6am this morning.
On Saturday, California Chrome will have his first look at the dirt track at Meydan Racecourse on which he will make his bid to win the world’s richest horse race before he undergoes a final training run on Wednesday.
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“I was there when he got out of the van and he looked great,” said Alan Sherman, assistant trainer to his father, Art. “He doesn’t look like he has lost weight, although I didn’t put him on the scales. “He’s a good traveller, so it’s been pretty much the same as previous trips, although this is the first time we’ve both been overseas.
“I’ll most likely take him for exercise there every day until Wednesday, when we will breeze him. He’s fit. All we really want him to do is stretch his legs on the main track and get a feel for the dirt surface.”
Art Sherman is expected at Meydan for that final workout. Owners Steve Coburn and Perry Martin are also due in next week.
Coburn and Martin are likely to face questions as to where California Chrome will run after Dubai following the revelation this week that the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winner is being wooed to run at Royal Ascot.
Animal Kingdom became the first Kentucky Derby winner to win the Dubai World Cup and follow up with a run at Ascot in June, finishing 11th of 13 in the 2013 Queen Anne Stakes. It was a path laid out by Dubai Millennium, who won the Dubai World Cup in 2000 for Godolphin and went on to win the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes at Ascot by eight lengths three months later.
Alan Sherman has not ruled out a trip to England.
“That’s really up to the owners, but if the horse runs well here and travels back home well I would love to go,” he said. “This is going to be his final season racing, so it would have to be this year.”
Nick Smith, head of international racing at the British racecourse, is in discussions with Coburn and Martin, and expects to be in Dubai to add the personal touch to his powers of persuasion.
Smith also hopes to entice Hong Kong star Able Friend, the triple Group 1 winner who will not be competing at the World Cup meeting.
“Absolutely at the top of the list from the USA is California Chrome,” Smith said on Wednesday. “At this stage, it is not something I am going to rush.
“It is enough for now that Art has been mentioning Royal Ascot to the press and I am set to talk properly to the owners in Dubai. He is proven on turf and they seem to have an ambitious mindset, as demonstrated by travelling for the World Cup.”
The seven-strong Japanese team, headed by World Cup hopefuls Epiphaneia and Hokko Tarumae, arrived in Dubai early Thursday morning.
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