Not many people who are 78 years old hold the same enthusiasm for life as Art Sherman, and with so much crammed into his days now it is easy to understand why.
Sherman is a father, a grandfather, a husband and the trainer of the most famous active racehorse on the planet in California Chrome, America's horse of the year and favourite to win Saturday's Dubai World Cup.
Sherman was scheduled to embark on Sunday on his first trip to Dubai in anticipation of a race that could result in him becoming the oldest trainer, by some distance, to win the US$10 million (Dh36.7m) feature.
Some horsemen make the journey to Dubai for the size of the purse. Others travel in the hope of gaining international recognition.
However, for Sherman, it is much simpler than that.
Perry Martin and Steve Coburn, California Chrome’s owners and breeders, want their horse to compete with the best, and that meant the World Cup.
Sherman did not particularly want to come, but if there was one aspect that has helped turn his thoughts about Dubai from indifference to excitement, it is that Meydan Racecourse could be filled with 80,000 spectators when the gates open for the final race.
Sherman has been in racing since he was 17, after a customer in his father’s barber shop believed his 1.57-metre frame would be perfect for a life in the saddle.
What continues to drive the former exercise rider of 1955 Kentucky Derby winner Swaps is the crowds, and their adulation of thoroughbred champions.
Churchill Downs held 164,906 racegoers when California Chrome won the Kentucky Derby last year, and although Meydan will be lucky to attract half that on Saturday, Sherman can barely wait for the buzz from what is the world’s largest grandstand built for racing.
“When I was a kid, I remember the crowds,” Sherman said in a teleconference call, becoming more animated as he warmed to his theme. “I remember when Swaps won the Hollywood Gold Cup and maybe there were 70,000 people.
“I miss that screaming and the hollering. You don’t see that often now in America. Hardly anybody wants to go and get on the freeway … But there’s nothing like being there.
“It was the biggest joy for me when California Chrome won the Hollywood Derby at Del Mar in November. I went to the paddock and there were around 25,000 screaming his name: ‘Chrome! Chrome! Chrome!’ And it was like, wow, look at these people that just love this horse, you know what I mean?
“I miss that in racing. I just love to see people enjoy the sport, and hope it can continue for my kids when I’m not around. The money part, well, you can only use so much money. It’s not important to me.”
California Chrome spearheads a two-pronged American challenge in the main event, along with 2013 Donn Handiap winner Lea, on Meydan’s new, dirt surface. This a year after not one American horse travelled to Dubai to participate in the most lucrative prize in the sport.
California Chrome, with his big white blaze and four white socks, has matured over the winter and has filled his frame.
He is a bigger and stronger specimen to the one that thrilled America last season en route to securing horse of the year honours. And yet he faltered, when pitted against Shared Belief in the San Antonio Stakes at Santa Anita in February on his first start of the year.
California Chrome had been beaten before, but it was how he surrendered to the current best horse in America that made the defeat so hard to stomach. Prior to the San Antonio, California Chrome had never lost a stretch battle. If he was in the lead, he won.
Shared Belief has subsequently gone on to carry top weight to a swaggering victory in the Santa Anita Handicap. It is a win that buoys the Shermans.
“We probably left him a little bit short for that race. He wasn’t 100 per cent and perhaps we didn’t work him fast enough,” Alan Sherman, assistant trainer to his father Art, told The National. “But Shared Belief is one of the best horses in America, so there is no disgrace in defeat. Chrome tried his best, though, so you can’t ask for more than that. We can’t expect to win them all.”
The defeat in the San Antonio was California Chrome’s fourth successive loss on dirt, after his defeat in front of 61,000 at Santa Anita in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, the Pennsylvania Derby and his high-profile loss in the Belmont Stakes, where he was looking to win the US Triple Crown, a race in which he suffered a nasty gash to his foot.
Although a win on turf in November in the Hollywood Derby may well tee up a trip to Royal Ascot in June, no foreign Dubai World Cup winner on dirt has had such poor lead-in form.
Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid led the debate last week as to whether California Chrome would handle the new dirt surface at Meydan, which has taken time to bed since it was installed after last year's World Cup.
Art Sherman says his charge is versatile enough.
“I know they have a new dirt track, and it seems like, with his style of running, I could place him anywhere,” Art Sherman said. “He’s got enough natural speed, and he can about run on any kind of track. I’ve been all over America and every track was different.” If the surface holds no fears for the Shermans after California Chrome had his first look at the track on Saturday, under regular work rider Willie Delgado, the long trip from California Chrome’s stable to the saddling enclosure on the night certainly holds some reservations.
“He is not used to walking that far,” Alan Sherman said. “It was about a half-an-hour walk from his stable. On World Cup night they van you up to a receiving barn, so that will help.
“He got a little fired up on his first morning, but every time we take him some place new he does that and then settles in.”
Saturday will be the 20th Dubai World Cup, and many this week will harken back to the inaugural running, in 1996, when the unbeaten Cigar came from America to win and help create the race’s reputation, an allure that has had Alan Sherman in thrall for nearly two decades.
“I think I have watched every Dubai World Cup,” he said. “Cigar was just an amazing horse and showed that you’ve got to bring the right horse over.
“They have got to have the right mind and the right constitution, and Cigar had it. We think so does Chrome.”
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