Steve Coburn, the folksy underdog hero-turned-villainous sore loser after his horse California Chrome lost his bid for the Triple Crown, is suddenly very sorry. On Good Morning America today, he said, "I need to apologize to the world and America. I wanted it so much for this horse to win the Triple Crown for the people of America and I was very emotional, very emotional."
Coburn and Perry Martin bred California Chrome from a mare they bought for $8,000 in 2008. The mare, Love That Chase, had only won one of out six career starts, leading a groom to say of her, "Anyone who decides to buy this horse is a dumbass." Still, Chrome won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes and headed to Belmont on Saturday as the favorite.
However, when Tonalist won the race—with Chrome ending in fourth place—Coburn went on a rant, complaining that not all of the horses ran all three races, "I’m 61 years old, and in my lifetime, I’ll never see another Triple Crown winner because of the way they do this. I look at it this way: If you can’t make enough points to get in the Kentucky Derby, you can’t run in the other two races... This is a coward’s way out... If you’ve got a horse, run him in all three. … Those 20 horses that start in Kentucky are the only 20 eligible to run in all three races."
Then on Sunday, Coburn told ESPN, "These people nominate their horses for the Triple Crown and then they hold out two [races] and then come back and run one. That would be like me at 6-2 playing basketball with a kid in a wheelchair. They haven't done anything with their horses in the Triple Crown. There were three horses in this race that ran in the first two—California Chrome, Ride on Curlin and General A Rod—none of the other horses did. You figure out. You ask yourself, 'Would it be fair if I played basketball with a child in a wheel chair?"
Now, at day 3, Coburn says he's "ashamed," adding, "I need to apologize to the winners. They ran a beautiful race…I did not mean to take anything away from them." And of Tonalist, he said, "He won the race fair and square."
Coburn's wife Carolyn also spoke to Good Morning America, saying, "This last year, we’ve given so much joy, this horse and our journey and our story has given so much joy to so many people and I hope that 30 seconds isn’t going to destroy all of that." And to her husband, she said, "I’m proud of you for coming up here and doing this and it was something that we needed to have done. I hope people can see him the way he is because that isn’t the way he normally is. He’s a very compassionate man."
The Coburns say that California Chrome was injured after leaving the gate; Steve Coburn said, "He made contact with another horse and he got stepped on really bad on his right front foot and tore some of the foot away. It’s going to take probably 10 days to two weeks to heal him up."
He added, "It’s a learning process for us and I’m going to do better. I promise you I’ll do better."
