California Chrome was the first Kentucky Derby prospect that Sherman had trained. Art Sherman's assistant is his son, Alan, who is also a licensed trainer. Rather than run a separate stable like his brother Steve, Alan has worked with his father since 1991. He does most of the hands-on day-to-day work with California Chrome and stayed with him throughout most of his travels when Art returned to California to oversee the rest of the stable. Unlike many high-end California Thoroughbred trainers, who usually are headquartered at Santa Anita Park, the Shermans kept horses at Hollywood Park, but when it closed in December 2013, Los Alamitos Race Course picked up some of the Thoroughbred races and trainers who had stabled horses at Hollywood Park, including Sherman. The success of California Chrome, who was conditioned there over the track that had been recently expanded to accommodate longer races, created good publicity for Los Alamitos. Sherman's groom for California Chrome, beginning with his arrival at the stable, was Raul Rodriguez, a veteran horse handler. Other members of Rodriguez's family were employed by Sherman's operation, and two of his sons were exercise riders for another stable. Rodriguez traveled everywhere with the horse throughout the stallion's world journeys. The groom's bonuses from the wins of California Chrome allowed Rodriguez to purchase a house and 80-acre ranch in his home of Jalisco in Mexico, where he intends to retire. Behavior Observers commented that California Chrome appears to be a very intelligent horse, as he expresses curiosity about everything around him. His idiosyncrasies, included a fondness for one specific brand of horse cookies. His tendency to perform a flehmen response for no obvious reason, particularly when being bathed, prompted the press to claim that he is "smiling". He will deliberately stop and put his ears forward to "pose" for cameras when he hears them clicking. As Alan Sherman explained, "He's a ham"; and exercise rider Willie Delgado gave him an additional nickname, "Vogue". As a younger horse, notably in 2014, he would not walk forward out of horse vans designed for a forward exit; he would only back out, a quirk discovered by the press when he was first unloaded off of an airplane. At the Sherman stables, he had a green tetherball in his stall to play with, but his worst bad habit is that he sometimes bites. On the track, California Chrome has the ability