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ARCADIA, Calif. — The 33rd running of the Breeders’ Cup Classic was supposed to be the coronation of California Chrome, widely regarded as not only the best

horse on the planet but also one of the most beloved. He is the Horatio Alger of the equine set, a determined athlete who outran his modest pedigree and endured the

chaos often foisted upon him by the humans around him. Happy endings, however, are hard to come by at the racetrack, especially when

there is a $6 million purse on the line, as there was on Saturday at Santa Anita Parkfor the Classic. Such a purse is catnip for deep-pocketed owners and the Hall of

Fame trainers they employ. Exhibit A is Juddmonte Farms, the name under which members of the royal family of Saudi Arabia breed and race some of the most

expensive and exquisite horses in the world. Among those horses is Arrogate, a late-developing 3-year-old whom the Saudi royalfamily paid $550,000 for as a yearling and parked in the barn of Bob Baffert, one of

America’s most successful trainers, who bounces slow horses from his barn at a rate that would make “Dancing With the Stars” contestants dizzy.

How good is Baffert? Two words: American Pharoah, a colt who last year became the first Triple Crown champion in 37 years and only the 12th in history.

How good? In August, Arrogate showed up in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., for the Travers Stakes as an 11-1 outsider and left not only with the trophy but also with

the record for the fastest mile and a quarter in more than 150 years of racing at the Spa.

Arrogate’s dramatic upset of California Chrome on Saturday punctuated just how good they both are.

Art Sherman, the 79-year-old trainer of California Chrome, knew what he was up against.

Breeders’ Cup: Arrogate’s Win Ends California Chrome’s

Perfect Year By: Joe Drape Nov. 5, 2016

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He is a racetracker, a man who as a teenager slept in a boxcar from California to Louisville, Ky., with a colt named Swaps who, once they arrived, won the Kentucky

Derby. He has never had more than a couple of dozen horses, and he had to work part time as a mutuel clerk during some of his barn’s leaner times.

Sherman loves his horse, the best one that he has ever had and probably ever will. Chrome, as he is known, came to Santa Anita a perfect 6 for 6 this year after a

globe-trotting campaign that took him to the desert of Dubai and to the beach party that is Del Mar in Southern California. His more than $13 million in purse earnings

made him the richest horse in the history of North America. Sherman will probably never be in the Hall of Fame, but thanks to Chrome, he will forever be known as the trainer of a Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Dubai

World Cup winner. He is the first to say that Chrome — whose name was pulled from a cowboy hat, combining his birthplace with the term used by horse people for

the flashes of white on a horse — owes him nothing. “I think Chrome’s going to run a race that everybody is going to admire,” Sherman

said before the race. California Chrome did, too. His rider, Victor Espinoza, gunned him from the gate

and led a field of eight rivals around the first turn, down the backstretch and into thestretch as if he were the grand marshal at the Thanksgiving Day parade. Chrome’s ears were pricked up, and he looked as if he were running by himself — controlled,

relaxed and wickedly fast. In the clubhouse, Baffert thought Arrogate had lost.

“When Chrome was out there cruising, I thought, ‘No way he’s going to catch him; he’s going to run second,’” Baffert said.

But Arrogate’s rider, Mike Smith, knew better. He may have been seven lengths behind California Chrome entering the stretch, but Smith had not asked his colt to

turn it on yet. Smith started scrubbing on Arrogate’s neck and smooching in his ear,coaxing the colt to find that supercharged gear.

He did. Arrogate bounded down the lane as if he were on a trampoline, his strides widening, his momentum matching a runaway steamroller on a downhill slope.

“It was incredible,” Smith said. “I’m at a loss for words.” Sherman was not. He watched Arrogate get his head to Chrome’s hip and then his

neck and then pass him altogether yards before the finish line. “He ran his race but just got beat in those last couple of jumps,” Sherman said.

“That winner is the real McCoy.”

The record books will reflect that, yes, Arrogate caught Chrome at the wire of the mile-and-a-quarter race. He won it by a half a length, in 2 minutes 0.11 of a second.

The $3.3 million made his rich owners, Juddmonte Farms, richer. It gave Baffert his third consecutive victory in one of the world’s most prestigious

races: American Pharoah won it last year and Bayern the year before. Arrogate wasthe 8-to-5 second choice and paid his backers $5.40 for a $2 bet.

But Sherman was hardly heartbroken. He still loves his horse, the best he has ever trained, and knows that old Chrome ran his heart out. This ending was happy

enough. “We had no excuses,” he said. “He’s been so good all year long, but it just shows

that you can’t win every race.”

Arrogate inching past California Chrome to win the Breeder's Cup

     On June 6, 2015, there was a crowd estimated to be around 90,000 at Belmont

Park to see if American Pharoah could sweep the Triple Crown. There had not been

a Triple Crown winner in thirty-seven years, so everyone was on the very edge of

their seat.

     The horses loaded into the starting gate, and as they blew the start whistle the

gates opened.  American Pharoah was late coming out of the starting gate, and

there was a single second of worry in the eyes of the crowd. But American Pharaoh

quickly made up for lost time, and made his way past all seven of his rivals. 

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American Pharaoh Takes the Triple Crown

Victor Espinoza Celebrating the Win

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     After the first turn, Materiality was right behind American Pharoah for about a

mile, but American Pharoah found another gear and took off leaving Materiality

with a mouth full of dust. However, American Pharaoh was not in the clear

yet. Catching up rapidly on the outside was Frosted, but American Pharaoh

widened his stride as if he were a rubber band and snapped off to the finish line.

     As American Pharoah crossed the finish line five and a half lengths ahead,

Espinoza, American Pharoah’s jockey finally allowed a smile and a celebration that

brought cheering, happiness, and tears to people in the crowd. American Pharaoh

had become the twelfth horse to win the Triple Crown, and he won it in 2 minutes

26.65 seconds.

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American Pharaoh

on the Home

Stretch

Victory Lap after

Winning the Triple

Crown

A Jockey Rises After Hard Fall From Grace

By RYAN GOLDBERG OCT. 2, 2015

Frankie Dettori does not often find himself at a loss for words. But he did recently, when he recalled his Epsom Derby triumph in June aboard Golden Horn.

“When I got to the furlong marker and I knew I was going to win, these enormous emotions . . .” he said, pausing before adding, “It’s very hard to explain.”

That 236th running of the Derby at Epsom in England will long be remembered as Dettori’s. Before that, his most recent Derby mount had been in 2011, and in

between his career had seemed headed off the rails. Dettori, a star jockey, had ended his 18-year association with the Godolphin Stable in the fall of 2012, and

soon after, in France, he tested positive for cocaine.

When he returned in 2013 after a six-month suspension, he was written off in somequarters. But, Dettori said, “To finish my career like that wasn’t my plan.”

Golden Horn’s win was a declaration of Dettori’s return to the top. He punched the air as the colt, clear of the runner-up Jack Hobbs, stretched for the finish. Later, before a cheering crowd of 125,000, Dettori leapt off the horse in his trademark

dismount.

“I’ve had a colorful life, and I’m not finished yet,” Dettori, 44, said after the race, before he and John Gosden, Golden Horn’s trainer, were greeted by Queen

Elizabeth II. But Dettori was pressed for time: He was scheduled to ride at Lingfield Park Racecourse in Surrey that night. “I said, ‘Excuse me, ma’am, but I have to go

to Lingfield,’ ” he recalled telling the queen.

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Three hours later, he won again, before a crowd of 7,644, — Lingfield’s largest since at least 1989 — aboard an odds-on maiden for the Al Shaqab Stable of

Sheikh Joaan al-Thani.

Dettori making his traditional victory dismount after winning the Qipco Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown racecourse in Dublin last month. “It was on the way home anyway, so it wasn’t a big deal,” Dettori said of the back-to-back

assignments.

The tight schedule would seem to be more fitting for a 21-year-old trying to prove himself than for a 44-year-old who has won more than 200 Group 1 contests and practically every major race around the globe. But since his suspension ended in

May 2013, he has at times seemed to be a man on a mission.

On Sunday, the Italian-born Dettori returns to the scene of his failed drug test: the Longchamp racecourse in Paris, where he will ride Golden Horn in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. His task — to stop Trêve’s historic bid for three consecutive victories — is loaded with intrigue. Thani, who lifted Dettori from his malaise by

hiring him as his stable rider in late 2013, owns Trêve.

It was Dettori who was supposed to ride Trêve in the 2013 Arc. But Dettori broke his ankle only days before, and then watched the filly’s tour de force triumph in

tears. Their reunion last year ended in bitterness: After two defeats, Trêve’strainer, Criquette Head-Maarek, lobbied to have Dettori replaced by Thierry Jarnet,

the filly’s previous rider.

Trêve had been fighting foot and back problems, but she recovered and won a second Arc as Dettori watched from atop the also-ran Ruler of the World. It was a

setback for Dettori, but not enough to derail his comeback.

Dettori is one of the few jockeys in the world who has reached celebrity status. In addition to his sporting exploits, he has appeared on the British reality TV show “Celebrity Big Brother” and the BBC quiz show “A Question of Sport.” He owns Frankie’s Sports Bar and Diner in London and has pitched Jockey yogurt and a

line of frozen Italian food. Used to spending all that time in the public eye, he was impatient during his suspension.

“My wife says I’ve got bipolar because sometimes I’m happy, sometimes I’m not, and I’ve got the concentration span of the flea,” he told The Guardian in May.

“She’s got a point — I’m often up and down.”

In a profession where an ambulance is always present at the workplace, nearly every jockey encounters tragedy at some point. Dettori is no exception, although

in his case it was not on the track. In 2000, a small plane in which he was traveling crashed in England. The pilot died, but Dettori and the other passenger, Ray Cochrane, a jockey at the time and now Dettori’s agent, escaped with minor

injuries. But Dettori has experienced few difficulties on the racecourse.

Dettori grew up on farmland near Milan, the son of a jockey, Gianfranco Dettori, and a mother who rode horses in the circus. His riding ability and flair for the big

stage came from them. At 14, he left school and his father sent him to England to train as an apprentice jockey. He turned professional at 16, but it was his time spent in the United States, Dettori said, that molded him into a true success.

During four English winters, Dettori rode at Santa Anita Park, near Los Angeles. Mounts were hard to come by until his final spell, but he watched and learned

from outstanding jockeys and trainers. In 1989, the jockey Angel Cordero told himto ride with his toes in the irons, not his feet, as was then the customary style in

Europe. He learned to crouch low in the saddle, especially in the stretch, to minimize the drag.

Back in Europe, his peers copied his unique style. In 1990 while still a teenager, Dettori won 100 races in one season. In both 1994 and 1995, he won more than

200 races.

In 1994, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, signed Dettori for his Godolphin operation. On a single July afternoon in 1996, he won all seven races at Ascot. In 2000, the sheikh’s horse Dubai Millennium, with Dettori

aboard, won the Dubai World Cup in record time.

As fate would have it, although Dettori had long since parted with Godolphin, his old employer inadvertently opened the way for him to ride Golden Horn. In

November 2014, Maktoum, after a poor season in England, settled on William Buick and James Doyle as his retained jockeys. Gosden often used both, so he

turned to Dettori. (He had also regularly used Dettori before he had joined Godolphin.)

Dettori won with Golden Horn in April. But a month later, in the Group 2 Dante Stakes, he rode Jack Hobbs, another Gosden colt, while Buick was on Golden Horn, who won again. Dettori seemed set to ride Jack Hobbs in the Derby, until Godolphin bought a piece of Jack Hobbs. So Buick and Dettori traded horses.

Winning the Derby was the best moment of his career, Dettori said, adding, “When

you get older you understand the importance of a race like that.”

He turns 45 in December, but he sounds as if he is closer to the start than the end of his celebrated career.

“It’s been my life for 30 years, and I absolutely love it,” he said. “We are quite

selfish as sportsmen because we get all this emotion and glory, and nobody can really understand that. My goal is to enjoy as much as I can for as long as I can.”

Racinos and Horse Racing

Horse racing is one of the oldest sports in Europe and North

America, and is thought to be at least 6,000 years old. Horse tracks

provide consumers a place to wager on the outcomes of races, and was

the leading spectator sport from 1900 to 1960. However, since the late

1980’s many feel the horse racing industry has been on the decline. In

a world of instant gratification, racetrack owners turned to the gaming

industry to provide some stability to their bottom line.

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Thistledown Racino in Ohio

Racinos, as they are known, are racetracks where other forms of

gambling, such as slot machines, are available. The slot machines

attract common folk and gamblers, which are not the typical horse

racing bettors. The idea was to convert slots players into horse bettors

in the long term, which some racing consultants claim is possible.

Whether they are converted or not, in most cases, the addition of slot

machines has increased the revenue of the racetracks.

For instance, in 2012 three racetracks in Eastern Pennsylvania were

getting at least 90% of their revenue from slot machines. Another

example is seen in New Mexico, where since slots were introduced in

1999, horse breeding has soared to record numbers leading to an

increase in salaries and employment of the racing industry.

While the long-term benefits of racinos is yet to be seen, statistics

show that there has been an increase in wagering at horse tracks in

states that allowed slot-style gaming either at the track or at off-track

betting parlors. Racinos have proven to be an effective complement to

horse racing in the short term, and are perhaps credited with saving the

racing industry. Their future remains to be seen.

Horse Racing Going Strong

Sources

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classic-arrogate-california-chrome.html?

rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fhorse-

racing&action=click&contentCollection=horse-

racing&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentP

lacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0

Internet Article 2http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/03/sports/horse-racing/a-jockey-rises-

after-hard-fall-from-grace-frankie-dettori-prix-arc-triomphe.html?_r=0