California Chrome-off to Chile

From the ‘Chromies’ page, today.

CHROME GOING TO CHILE
With breeding season now over here in the US, it should be a time for our Champ to finally enjoy just being a horse. Nope, not for Chrome. On July 21, he’ll be crated & shipped to Chile, for yet another 5 months in the breeding shed. He isn’t scheduled to return until just before Christmas. I couldn’t be more disappointed with this decision by Chromes Owners, Taylors & Martins. Obviously, it’s based entirely on money. What’s in Chromes best interest? If the Owners asked themselves that question, Chrome would be staying in Kentucky, instead of being shipped off to live in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people. Apparently nothing was learned from the England debacle 2 years ago. By now I would have thought everyone surrounding this horse knew the most important element to Chromes “well being” is his relationships with people. The remainder of this year he should be doing what he thrives on, (& rightfully deserves), hanging out in the pasture, eating cookies, & interacting with his fans. Understandably, that’s not where the money is, but its the right thing to do for Chrome.

Why is it so hard for the Owners to realize what’s best for Chrome can also be what’s best for them? Why can’t they think differently about a horse who most assuredly is the most unique creature they will ever own? Shuttling champion Stallions internationally is common but it doesn’t mean that’s the only choice they have to cash in on Chromes fame. A great example of this is Secretariats Owner. She looked at the long term investments of owning the worlds most popular horse. She acknowledged she owned a legend, a horse that not only was a winner on the race track but also one that captured Americas hearts. Like Chrome, Secretariat was the “Peoples Horse” and his Owner took full advantage of that financially by licensing his name to movies, books, merchandise & memorabilia. (If you haven’t seen the new Volvo commercial featuring Secretariat, check it out!) Even today, almost 30 years after Secretariats death, Penny Chenery continues to reap the benefits of her brilliant financial decisions. In doing so, she has kept Secretariats legacy alive in our memories, along with being introduced to generations who otherwise wouldn’t have known him.
There are many reasons to keep Chrome home. 1) Most important being, this trip will be very stressful on him, not only the long travel itself, the massive vaccines required to travel abroad, & his stay in quarantine, but everything will be different for our Champ, including the sights, sounds, smells, climate, food, water, accommodations, people & so on. Not to mention the pampering & attention he’s become accustomed to. Taylor Made said Chrome will be with their “South American Representative, Sebastian Angelillo” while in Chile. Who? Chrome doesn’t know Angelillio, & he doesn’t know Chrome. No matter how they spin it, bottom line is, Chrome will be alone, once again removed from everyone & everything familiar to him. Again, If the Owners had simply asked themselves what’s best for Chrome, & not just their bank accounts, they would have considered making a former groom we know, an offer he couldn’t refuse to accompany his friend in Chile.

  1. The stress a Stallions heart goes through while studding, is no laughing matter. Thoroughbreds are already prone to anxiety & stress from racing & the long term effects from drugs used during their career. Unfortunately, premature death from a sudden heart attack is not uncommon in thoroughbreds. It was just this past February, that Chromes Dad, Sire “Lucky Pulpit” dropped dead from a massive heart attack after covering a mare. Another great Champion, Scat Daddy, who also happened to shuttle to Chile for 3 consecutive years, died suddenly in 2015 of a heart attack, he was only 11. Lucky Pulpit was 16. That’s young considering the average life span is 25 - 30 years. Its too much to ask of a horse who has already given so much to so many. Non-stop training & competing from October 2015 - January 28, 2017, which included a International trip to Dubai. Almost immediately after, he began his second career in the breeding shed. After 5 months of studding, (he looked totally drained this past June) he will now be forced to work another 5 months abroad. That’s not normal, or right.

  2. By years end, Chrome will have impregnated approx. 300 mares. That’s too much to ask of any horse. Not only is it to much for the Stallion, but what happens to all of Chromes future foals? History tells us the odds are against them of becoming close to what Chrome has accomplished. Many wont even qualify to race. Given the odds, its shocking how much overbreeding goes on today. Horses are expensive to own, they take up a lot of space, require special diets & care. You have to ask yourself, what happens to all of those babies & generations to come? According to statistics, the outcome for some of Chromes future foals isn’t good, to say the least. Just 5 years ago, In 2012, the direct grandson to Secretariat, “Royale with Speed” was hours away from being slaughtered, when he was rescued by a US animal rights group. That’s the secret, ugly side of horse-racing. The sad fact is, There are no breeding limits because of the money involved in the sport. The uncertain future of these innocent beings, is caused by humans, shouldn’t we be more responsible as a society, than to allow for the overbreeding of such a massive animals, only to find out if they can race or not? Chile, is located next to Argentina, where horse slaughter is common practice. Obviously, with all the breeding planned for our Champ, eventually, there will be Chrome blood shed in South America where horse meat is common flare. That shouldn’t sit well with anyone.

After following Chrome since he blazed across that finish line in the 2014 Kentucky Derby, one thing I know for certain, Horse racing & its Owners are their own worst enemy. It was a dying sport before California Chrome, & with no lessons learned, it will be a dying sport once again. Im sure the Taylors & Martins are fine people, however their decision to send Chrome abroad is not.

They still don’t understand, Chrome was the reason we watched horse racing, not the other way around.

#KeepChromeHome

It’s the gift that keeps on giving!

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Crated?
Studding?
Long term effect from drugs used during their career (sic)?

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That isn’t from Chrome’s page. That implies connections not we put the fan in fanatic and don’t you dare interrupt my verbal stream of consciousness with facts.

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That was the old Bring Chrome Home page (which they might just resurrect). I gather that Chrome has been enjoying all of that “studding,” so probably they are widening his horizons while he still has his enthusiasm. I somehow doubt that it will hurt him–and being from California he already knows Spanish.

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While the KeepChromeHome gang may be cuckoo for cocoa puffs, there are some valid concerns to huge books and shuttling. But I don’t think California Chrome minds!

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I’m not sure if this is :lol: or :rolleyes:

:smiley:

BB, correct on CC more than likely already knowing Spanish. I actually suspect he’s heard it in other places than CA.

PS. Think he’ll fit in my largest dog crate for the trip?

More anthropomorphizing twaddle from someone who professes their “love” for a racehorse ad nauseam, yet can’t be bothered to educate themselves about the subject of their obsession.

The ignorance is mind boggling and their fixation on this racehorse, sometimes to the point of hysteria, is creepy.

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The U.S. is “next” to Mexico and Canada where horse slaughter is common practice.:wink:

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A lot of stallions do the north-south breeding thing. Not uncommon at all. Valuable animals are treated like gold - he’ll be ok, and my guess is he’d sooner have girlfriends than human handlers anyway. He may loose weight.

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For going on close to 30 years. I think it has been pretty “studied”. All of these horses are well insured. Insurance companies do not like to take risks. Especially with horses. As a person that was involved in the early days of “dual hemisphere” breeding it took a bit of convincing and fairly high rates to get insurance companies on board. Accident, Sickness and disease coverage wasn’t too expensive. But we also had to insure for “Frustration of Export and Import” Meaning the horse for any number of reasons couldn’t be returned for the northern hemisphere season. Which also required “loss of use” insurance. Those were “pioneering days” so there was a lot to think about and worked out.

Hummm… a fee of $40K LF for the most unique creature that Taylor Made will ever own??? (To be fair, his fee is the highest of the Taylor Made non-associate stallions :slight_smile: ). There are also other stallions I might be more inclined to choose based on pedigree and fee (of course, depending also on the quality of my nonexistent broodmare.)

300? That seems like a very large number to me for CC. In 2016, Uncle Mo covered 253 and, IMO, CC is no Uncle Mo.
Does anyone else think 300 is a large number for Chrome? (Depending on the stallion, I think a very achievable number). In 2016, only 4 stallions covered 200+ mares in the US, Uncle Mo, Into Mischief, American Pharoah and Kitten’s Joy. Some, of course, are based on pedigree and track performance (AP) and some because their offspring are proving themselves on the track. Maybe CC has the track performance but not so sure he’s got the pedigree to back up high counts.

The rest of the comments just make my head hurt…

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These pages are not Chrome’s pages. As a matter of fact when one of these pages was the BCH page I was messaged through Facebook and told to avoid the owner’s official page at all costs because it gave out false information yada yada yada. All very nuts.

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I think that 300 number is meant to include both northern and southern hemisphere mares.

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Oh dear. I found the page.

This was the first post I read, “It was also just announced yesterday that Faversham, Chromes only full blood brother, is being sent to pasture at Harris Farms, He was diagnosed with a condition called Cryptorchid.”

Oye.

I had a mini mule with ‘a condition called cryptorchid.’ Very curable at Cornell University and everyone is happy. :lol:

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Oh good grief.

“Cryptorchidism is considered very undesirable by all knowledgeable Horse people. The undescended testicle tends to lower fertility, as the constant higher temperature around the testicle in the body cavity causes more abnormal sperm, both deformed and with poor motility. It is believed to also contribute to a rather poor disposition in the horse.”

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Nevermind the fact that the most successful sire of the past 30 years was also diagnosed with “cryptorchidism.”

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I’m doomed. I commented. :dead:

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I was just going to say that, lol. I guess knowledgeable horsemen considered A.P. Indy undesirable. :lol:

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Lyphard also

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