California Chrome's brother, Faversham, wins his first race

California Chrome’s final full sibling, Faversham, took blinkers off, returned to the turf and broke his maiden impressively in Santa Anita Park’s fifth race on Thursday.

The California-bred son of the late Lucky Pulpit, out of the mare Love the Chase, came with a flurry in the stretch under new jockey Tiago Periera to prevail by 3 1/4 lengths.

Faversham is trained by Art Sherman, who conditioned Horse of the Year California Chrome, and was bred and owned by Perry Martin and his wife, Denise. Perry Martin was one half of the “Dumbass Partners” group along with Steve Coburn to originally campaign Chrome, the 2014 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winner who went on to achieve even more success as an older racehorse.

“He has all kinds of talent,” Sherman said.  “He had a horse fall in front of him a couple races back and it’s been tough to calm him down…I’m hoping that by winning this race the way he did, he can relax better and run to his potential.”

As Faversham tracked down a fading leader Clyde's Pride in the stretch, race caller Michael Wrona exclaimed, “Big brother will be proud!”

The 3-year-old ridgling went off at 17-1 in the field of 10 going a mile on grass. His final time was 1:36.26.

Faversham showed little after what was a promising debut on the dirt on Jan. 15, when he broke slowly but rallied for second. He went straight into the California Cup Derby from there, running eighth, and had one other finish on the board in his three other starts heading into Thursday.

Hope’s Love, a full sister to California Chrome foaled in 2013, never won in five starts. R Sunday Surprise, the filly who followed in 2014, took eight races to find the winner’s circle. This time around, the combination of Lucky Pulpit and Hope's Love produced another victor.