Meet the ‘Chromies’: The world’s most popular horse draws dozens to see his 5:30 a.m. workouts

It was as if the lights on the front stretch of Los Alamitos Race Course needed time to wake up so they could illuminate the larger-than-usual crowd that showed up at 5:30 a.m. to see a big chestnut horse do a high-speed practice gallop around the track.

In attendance were the three founding members of the Los Alamitos Breakfast Club, a group of women bearing pastries, cookies and coffee. There was the insurance underwriter, camera in hand, leaning against the front rail of the track. There were trainers, fans and self-described aficionados.

The faces are all part of this not-so-secret society that calls itself Chromies. The bond that makes them leave their homes early in the morning to gather in the cool air on many Saturdays is the desire to watch California Chrome, the world’s most popular horse, work out.

Among the 30-plus who showed up on a mid-December Saturday was Mark Mulhall, 75, a retired wholesale meat salesman from Yorba Linda. He sat comfortably, his wheelchair pushed up against the rail, bundled in his red jacket and Chrome insignia hat.

“I’m sure there are other people that love him as much as I do,” Mulhall said, his voice growing soft as tears started to stream down his face. It wasn’t this moment that worried Mulhall, it’s what happens in less than a month.

California Chrome, after running his first race at Los Alamitos on Saturday, will probably work out at the Orange County track only one more time before a final race in Florida followed by a move to the breeding shed in Kentucky in February.

Once again, something will be taken from Mulhall’s life.

Mulhall’s wife, Anita, died about a year ago of cancer. He suffered a stroke three months ago that has left him immobile on his right side. He’s well on his way to regaining his speech and for the most part has recovered in his attitude.

Standing nearby were his friends Dennis Cole and wife Terryll, who have made it their mission to see that Mulhall gets to see Chrome as often as he can.

“This is how Mark learned to deal with his wife’s cancer,” said Cole, a 50-year-old owner of a trucking company in Corona. “He would slip over here to give him just a brief break from taking care of her. He got away by watching Chrome in the morning.”

To some, it’s difficult to imagine how a horse, more than 1,000 pounds of muscle built on a fragile skeleton, could bring so many people together. The Chromies don’t need an explanation; they know. It’s his personality. It’s his story. It’s everything that captures the spirit of racing, the story of the overachiever and the people who believed.

Vaughn Woodling is a Chromie, although he usually skips the post-workout gatherings at Schwanie’s Grill at the Gap, a comfort food stop with a deck overlooking the track.

But he is among the converted.

“I think it’s the whole story,” said the 51-year-old insurance underwriter from Anaheim. “It’s kind of a rags-to-riches story. A lot of the horses you see competing against him are owned by sheiks and billionaires. They are great horses, and you like to watch them, but it’s different for the common man to relate to them like you can to California Chrome.”

Chrome is the product of a couple of California breds, Lucky Pulpit and Love The Chase. The stud fee was $2,500, and the mare was bought for $8,000. What resulted was the equivalent of Jed Clampett finding all that bubbling crude.

Laura Hillenbrand, the author of “Seabiscuit: An American Legend,” the story of how a country learned to feel good about itself through the actions of one animal, sees a parallel between the two horses.

“California Chrome is the Seabiscuit of our era,” Hillenbrand said. “They share unfashionable breeding and low-dollar backgrounds, imperfect confirmation, an unlikely cast of characters around them, advent in difficult times in American history and, most of all, ferocious combative will. Knock them around, and they keep coming back. And the world is rapt.”

Hillenbrand, who also wrote the improbable story of Louis Zamperini’s survival in “Unbroken,” recognizes America’s love affair with the underdog story.

“When we see a public figure who has much to overcome, in them we see ourselves,” Hillenbrand said. “We attach ourselves to them because if they succeed, they plant a seed of hope in us. … The California Chromes of the world breathe inspiration into us. They are our reminders of the immense potential in all of us. Underdogs are the proxies of ordinary people.”

Trainer Art Sherman, 79, is Chrome’s front man. He’s as much a part of the story as the horse, whether he’s talking about today or the mid-1950s when he was an exercise rider for the legendary racehorse Swaps.

On this Saturday, he stayed at Schwanie’s almost two hours after Chrome’s workout greeting all the Chromies as if they were long-lost friends.

“You go all over the country and you can’t believe the number of people who know this horse. I get Christmas cards from all over the world,” Sherman said. “It’s just one of those things where the people love the horse. He’s the people’s horse and been great for the game.”

On an outside table sat boxes of doughnuts and a special bag of cookies: Mrs. Pastures Cookies for Horses, Chrome’s favorite.

“We always give them sealed bags because we want them to know that there’s nothing tainted,” said Karen Oman, a hospice social worker from Long Beach and the unofficial spokesman of the Los Alamitos Breakfast Club.

The cookie became part of the horse’s legend in 2014, when he made his run at the Triple Crown. After an improbable win in the Kentucky Derby, followed by a stirring win in the Preakness, the world was ready for this outhouse-to-penthouse equine to become the first Triple Crown winner in decades.

The hype for the Belmont Stakes was high, but in the end, three races in five weeks proved too much for the colt as he finished fourth. Chrome disappeared much of last year after finishing second in the Dubai World Cup.

He came back for his 5-year-old year, a rarity for horses of his caliber. He won six races in a row, including the Dubai World Cup, where he became the all-time winningest horse in purses among North American equines. He has won more than $14 million.

His winning streak ended at Santa Anita last month when he was beaten by Arrogate in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. The stretch drive was deafening, with most of the 72,000 in attendance cheering for Chrome.

“The horse has so much charisma you can hardly believe it,” said another member of the Club, Wendy Lembke, a ticket coordinator from Westminster. “You can watch him come out on the track, the way he looks around, he’s so curious. He’s really interested in the fans. If he hears a camera clicking, he’s like all over it.”

Sharon Dominey, who is retired, is the other member of the Breakfast Club, and usually brings her husband, Steve, from their home in Los Alamitos.

The trio have started a blog called the Chrome Chronicles, which can be on the Paddock Chronicles (www.paddockchronicles.com). They plan to produce a book next year called “How California Chrome Changed My Life,” a collection of stories on the personal impacts the horse has made. All proceeds will go to the aftercare of retired racehorses.

Even though Chrome has been stabled at Los Alamitos since January 2014, he has never run a race there. Saturday will be his final race in California, the $180,000 Winter Challenge, a race put together to both celebrate his time there and give him what is likely to be little more than a paid workout.

No one is really sure how many people will come out to watch Chrome in the last race of the day (about 4:30 p.m.), but signs are it will be the biggest crowd in a long time. The Vessels Club, the high-end restaurant at the track, has been sold out for days.

Mulhall and Cole plan to be at the track. It’s only through happenstance that they know each other. Both stable horses in Chino. Cole owns a couple of thoroughbreds, and Mulhall’s wife used to show Tennessee walking horses.

“He noticed I had some racehorses, and we just started talking about them,” Cole said. “After that, we became friends and started going to the races together.”

Cole was there when Mulhall’s wife started to decline, and they would frequently meet up at Los Alamitos. As a horse owner, Cole could get better tables and box seats that made the experience more pleasant.

“That’s the only thing that got him through it, was coming to see Chrome,” Cole said. “That’s what he latched on to after the loss of his wife.”

Several months after Anita died, Cole wasn’t seeing Mulhall at the track anymore.

“I asked, ‘Where’s Mark?’ and I found out he had a stroke,” Cole said. “Ever since then, I go every single Saturday and pick him up in his wheelchair at 3 a.m. and bring him to see his favorite horse.”

The benefits began to increase as this triangle of two men and a horse started to form.

“He’ll stand up [from his wheelchair] and hang on to the rail and yell and scream for Chrome. He’ll do things he won’t do in physical therapy because his mind’s in a different place,” Cole said. “The adrenaline is going. Normally in physical therapy, he could only stand for a few seconds. He’ll stand for two or three minutes for a race.”

After Saturday’s race, the Chromies probably will convene at Los Alamitos for Chrome’s final predawn workouts, possibly on Dec. 31. He ships to Gulfstream in Florida on Jan. 6 to run in the $12-million Pegasus, a one-of-a-kind race in which the participants each put up $1 million of their own money.

From there, he’s headed to Taylor Made Stallions in Kentucky, where his services will be offered for $40,000 a mating.

“It’ll probably hit me after he races and he leaves and goes to stud,” said Sherman, the trainer. “I’ll have to go back and see him once he’s turned out.”

Back at Los Alamitos, the breakfast club will still be around, but not as often.

“We probably won’t come every weekend,” Oman said. “And we’ll probably come later, like 7 o’clock.”

Things will indeed be different when California Chrome leaves the state.

john.cherwa@latimes.com

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UPDATES:

11:25 a.m.: This article was updated with comments from Laura Hillenbrand.

This article was originally published at 9 a.m.