More California Chrome Controversy

[GenuineRisk]

Originally Posted by Merlinsky

You're kidding right? King wants to run a horse after getting the money. They want $50K to show their horse for a few minutes and thousands for themselves to sit in a tent and sign. Who would want their autographs after this attitude God only knows. If they wanted an appearance fee to come to Del Mar to run in a race, it'd be par for the course for horses at a certain level. Wooing with a bonus happens on occasion if a track is really interested in making it happen. If you don't want to parade your horse, say no and shut your piehole. Either it's too taxing or it isn't. $50K doesn't make it any easier on the horse, just on their pocket books. They've shown their true colors long ago. I don't see how anybody can give them the benefit of the doubt now. There was no recent loss of the Belmont to blame for the thought out statement made by Perry Martin.

Poor Art Sherman having to put up with these fools. People loved the story in the beginning, but they're a lot closer in temperament to owners we've wished would go away. It's a shame.

Here's Bobby Flay's comment on the situation: http://www.paulickreport.com/news/th...ent-1483614937

I read the Fox story and the Paulick story above the Flay comment and I think Martin asked for $50K because he didn't want to do it at all, and that's a pretty common tactic to get out of doing something- overbid for it. As for Del Mar saying they're not-for-profit and don't usually pay appearance fees; I don't work there so I wouldn't know. I do know I worked years for a not-for-profit that paid appearance fees to celebrities, so it's not unusual to expect.

What Martin seemed to be really angry about was that he believed Del Mar talked to the press about bringing CC there before talking to him or Coburn and that, when he overbid, that Del Mar went to the press again.

I thought his public statement was hilarious, especially acknowledging he wasn't worth anywhere close to what he said Baffert's appearance fee is. And yeah, it's probably unreasonable of Del Mar to expect CC's connections to shell out several thousand dollars of their own money to boost Del Mar's attendance for a day and while it likely wouldn't do the horse any harm it's not necessarily going to do him any good, either. I don't think the horse cares about fan adulation.

In the end it does't hurt horse racing- it's an amusing pissing match and it doesn't involve doping or horses breaking down, so no harm done.