RACING
WINNING OWNERS Profiles on Grade 1-winning owners between April and June, 2014
North American Trainer’s special feature on our top Grade 1 winners for the past quarter. Visit trainermagazine.com/winners to view the profiles of all Grade 1-winning owners from April 2013 through June 2014. WORDS: BILL HELLER PHOTOS: HORSEPHOTOS.COM
CALIFORNIA CHROME
Won the Santa Anita Derby at Santa Anita, April 5th, 2014 Owned by Steve Coburn and Perry Martin Trained by Art Sherman Sire Lucky Pulpit Dam Love the Chase by Not For Love
LONGTIME racing fans Perry Martin and Steve Coburn each owned a five percent share of an $8,000 mare named Love the Chase in a syndicate. When the syndicate dissolved, each
wanted to buy the mare himself. Instead, they became partners. Someone suggested a name for their new stable. A groom walked by and said, ‘Anybody who buys this horse is a dumb ass,’ Martin told Debbie Arrington in her April 4th, 2014, story in the Sacramento Bee. Steve and I shook hands; we’re the Dumb Ass Partners. Indeed, their California Chrome races in purple and green silks featuring a caricature of a jackass. How dumb are Martin and Coburn? California Chrome was Love the Chase’s first foal. His dominating victories in the Grade 2 San Felipe and the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby extended his all-stakes winning streak to four heading into the Kentucky Derby for 77-yearold trainer Art Sherman, who was the exercise rider for 1955 Santa Anita and Kentucky Derby winner Swaps. Like Swaps, California Chrome is a California-bred. Unlike their trainer, Martin and Coburn don’t have historical ties to racing. Martin and his wife Denise own and operate Martin Testing Laboratories at the former McClellan Air Force
Base in Sacramento. Martin Testing Laboratories is a commercial full-service independent lab offering contract research and development, product assurance testing and material assurance testing services. Coburn works at a factory that makes magnetic strips for credit cards. His wife, Carolyn, recently retired. We’re just everyday people, Coburn told Arrington. I’m up at 4:30 every morning and in bed by 10. Martin said, We’ve got two businesses to run; the horse is our third business. But we’re really happy and excited. And that was before the Kentucky Derby and Preakness wins, even. California Chrome was born at Harris Farms in California. He weighed 137 pounds when he was born, Coburn said. That’s big. We nicknamed him Junior. I told my wife when we saw this horse on the day after he was born, ‘We better hang on for this ride because it’s going to be a good one.’ He had no idea.
DADS CAPS Won the Carter Handicap at Aqueduct, April 5th, 2014 Owned by Vincent Scuderi Trained by Rudy Rodriguez Sire Discreet Cat Dam Seeking the Silver by Grindstone
Dads Caps wins the Carter Handicap at Aqueduct
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BORN in Glen Cove on Long Island, New York, 57-year-old Vincent Scuderi is a thirdgeneration president of his family’s Brooklyn business, Van Blarcom Company, now
known as VBC. The company’s five buildings occupy an entire city block, manufacturing child resistant closures and specialty products