By Beth Harris, AP

NEW YORK — California Chrome went home to the West Coast on Sunday with a bandaged right front foot — and no Triple Crown — after bumping another horse leaving the Belmont Stakes starting gate.

Steve Coburn, who co-owns California Chome, was still smarting, too.

He was irked Belmont winner Tonalist didn’t run in either of the first two legs of the Triple Crown. After the race, he complained others took “the coward’s way out” by skipping the Derby and/or the Preakness.

A day later, Coburn was unrepentant.

“It’s not fair to these horses that are running to entertain these people in all three legs of the Triple Crown,” he said. “It’s not fair to them to have somebody just show up at the last minute and run. I may have gone off half-cocked yesterday, but that’s the way I feel.”

Under Coburn’s premise, there would have been just three horses in the $1.5 million Belmont, making it unlikely the third-largest crowd of 102,199 would have shown up or that a record $19,105,877 would have been wagered on-track.

California Chrome, General a Rod and Ride On Curlin were the only horses to run in the Derby, Preakness and Belmont. General a Rod finished seventh and Ride On Curlin did not finish.

Art Sherman, the 77-year-old trainer of California Chrome, distanced himself from Coburn’s comments.

“Horses aren’t cowards and the people aren’t cowards,” he said. “He was at the heat of the moment. Don’t forget he’s a fairly new owner. Sometimes your emotions get in front of you. He hasn’t been in the game long and hasn’t had any bad luck.”

Coburn and Perry Martin named their racing operation Dumb Ass Partners, with California Chrome the lone horse in their stable. The chestnut colt has earned $3,317,800 this year and brought a six-race winning streak into the Belmont.

California Chrome had smooth trips in winning the Kentucky Derby and Preakness to set up a shot at racing’s first Triple Crown in 36 years. But he had a rough trip in the 1 1/2-mile Belmont on Saturday, getting a chunk of flesh torn from his foot after bumping with Matterhorn coming out of the starting gate. California Chrome finished in a dead heat for fourth with Wicked Strong.

“It was kind of scary. You come back and see a horse bleeding from the foot,” Sherman said. “He’s never had anything wrong with him. We’ve been awful fortunate.”

Sherman said California Chrome has a superficial wound that should heal in two to three weeks. The colt will then rest for six to seven weeks after a tough Triple Crown campaign that involved running in three races at different tracks and distances over five weeks.

His camp plans to point him toward the Breeders’ Cup this fall at Santa Anita.

Sherman thought Coburn would apologize for his comments. Instead, the outspoken co-owner went even further Sunday.

“It wouldn’t be fair if I played basketball with a child in a wheelchair because I got an unfair advantage,” Coburn said. “If your horse is good enough to run in the Belmont, where was he in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness? It says Triple Crown, not one out of two, one out of three or two out of three.”

Sherman said, “I can’t make excuses. That’s not really what you should do in these type of races.”

Frenchman Christophe Clement, who won his first Triple Crown race with Totalist, declined to comment on Coburn’s remarks.

Coburn had predicted California Chrome would win the Triple Crown.

“If they want to call me a sore loser, I don’t care,” he said.

Horses are made eligible for the Triple Crown races in January. Owners and trainers of horses not nominated can pay a late fee of $6,000 in March to get in. The 20-horse field for the Kentucky Derby is decided by a points system, with horses earning points for running in prep races. The Preakness and Belmont have maximum fields of 14, but no points system is used.

It’s common for horses to drop in and out of the Triple Crown series. In 1978, when Affirmed won the Triple Crown, the Belmont had a five-horse field. Two of the colt’s rivals did not run in the first two legs and one only ran in the Derby.

In 1977, Seattle Slew won the Triple Crown. The Belmont had eight horses, and five did not run in the first two legs. One ran only in the Preakness, and one other besides Slew raced in all three legs.

On Saturday, second-place finisher Commissioner was new to the Triple Crown series. Winner Tonalist wasn’t ready for the Derby, so trainer Clement prepared him for the Belmont.

“California Chrome was running with tough, fresh horses that were waiting in the wings, and that’s what happens,” Sherman said. “We all know when you’re on this trail you got to have an iron horse.”

The veteran trainer hopes California Chrome’s owners will keep him running next year as a 4-year-old. He credited the colt for having a lot of talent and taking his handlers on an exciting ride.

“This is one of them races that we couldn’t win,” Sherman said, “but he didn’t disgrace us any.”

By Melinda Myers

Don’t let a lack of time or space get in the way of gardening your way to a healthy lifestyle. Plant a container of nutritious vegetables and herbs. Include a few planters on the front porch, back patio or right outside the kitchen door.

All that’s needed is some potting mix, fertilizer, plants and a container with drainage holes. A 15- to 24-inch diameter pot or 24- to 36-inch long window box is a good starting size.

Bigger containers hold more plants and moisture longer, so it can be watered less frequently.

Check containers daily and water thoroughly as needed. Self-watering pots need less frequent watering, allowing busy gardeners and travelers the opportunity to grow plants in pots with minimal care.

Fill the container with a well-drained potting mix. Read the label on the container mix bag. Add a slow release organic nitrogen fertilizer, like Milorganite at planting for better results with less effort. It provides small amounts of nutrients throughout most of the season and eliminates the need to mix and water in fertilizer throughout the growing season.

Sprinkle a bit more on the soil surface midseason or when changing out your plantings.

Mix colorful flowers with nutritious vegetables for attractive, healthy results. Bright Lights Swiss Chard, pansies (their flowers are edible), colorful leaf lettuce, spinach, radishes, and trailing ivy make a great cool season combination. Fresh-from-the-container-garden vegetables make the best tasting salads and the greens provide Vitamins A and C as well as calcium.

Use the pansy flowers to dress up a salad or frozen in ice cubes for an added gourmet touch to beverages.

For summer, use a tomato, pepper, eggplant or peas, beans, and cucumbers trained on a trellis. All are packed full of nutrients and make a great vertical accent. Surround the towering vegetables with purple basil, tri-color sage, carrots, beets and a colorful trailing annual like verbena, lantana, or bidens.

Don’t forget to squeeze in a few onions or garlic. The fragrant foliage can be decorative and these vegetables help lower blood sugar and cholesterol, while aiding in digestion.

So be creative and add a few small-scale, attractive vegetables high in nutritional value to a variety of containers this season.

Melinda Myers has more than 30 years of horticulture experience and has written more than 20 gardening books.

• The Valhalla festival on the South Shore will not be producing “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” this summer, but instead will be putting on “The Servant of Two Masters” on July 10-13 and July 17-20 at the Boathouse Theater.

• Truckee’s Coldstream Specific Plan will be before the Planning Commission June 17 at 6pm at the town hall.

• Tahoe Regional Young Professionals is expanding to the North Shore. For more info, email tahoetryp@gmail.com. To kick off the expansion, there will be a mixer at Crosby’s Pub in Incline Village on June 19 from 6:30-9:30pm.

• Get acquainted with a variety of bugs from around the world with officials from the UC Davis’ Bohart Museum of Entomology. They will be at the South Lake Tahoe Library on July 18 at 2pm. The event is free at 1000 Rufus Allen Blvd.

By Jennifer Ludden, KQED-TV

The number of dads staying at home with their children has nearly doubled in the past two decades, and the diversity among them defies the stereotype of the highly educated young father who stays home to let his wife focus on her career.

A study from the Pew Research Center finds that almost 2 million fathers are at home, up from 1.1 million in 1989. Nearly half of those men live in poverty.

“The largest share of stay-at-home dads are actually home because they’re ill or disabled,” says Gretchen Livingston, a senior researcher at Pew. “So that could be contributing to their low income, obviously.”

Another chunk of men say they’re at home because they can’t find a job.

“About 22 percent don’t have a high school diploma,” says Livingston, “and 36 percent have just a high school diploma but no college experience.”

Read the whole story

Even though Corral Trail has been professionally designed, it’s not all about gnarly mountain bikers.

This video by South Lake Tahoe’s First Track Productions shows how even 4-year-olds ride it. People can roll over all the features or do tricks off them.

TAMBA — Tahoe Area Mountain Biking Association — and the U.S. Forest Service partnered to improve this South Shore trail for all levels of riders. It took hundreds of hours of volunteer time.

Virginia City offers one of the region’s longest firework displays on July 4.

Echoing off Mt. Davidson for nearly 30 minutes, it’s possible to feel the boom in your bones. The fireworks soar high above the town and into Six Mile Canyon, making them visible from nearly anywhere in town.

The Virginia City Fourth of July Celebration also includes a parade, a raffle and auction, the Comstock Cowboys Second Amendment Concert, an Old West shoot-out, and food and beverage vendors.

For more info and times of events, go online.

Trails and Vistas’ Art Hikes blend art experiences with being immersed in nature.

This year’s guided art hikes will take place along an aspen lined trail at Spooner Lake in Lake Tahoe Nevada State Park on Sept. 6-7.

“Meadows to Mountains — A cultural journey” will include Scarlet Rivera, one of the world’s most prominent and versatile violinists, and award-winning flutist Ann Licater. Santa Cruz-based SambaDá, a funk band dubbed the “the West Coast’s hottest Brazilian band” will also perform during the Sept. 7 art hikes.

In addition to the art hikes, there will be an evening world music concert featuring prominent and celebrated musicians from near and far on Sept. 6. The concert includes multiple acts and serves as a fundraiser for Trails and Vistas’ Art in Nature fieldtrips for more than 300 third-grade students.

Tickets for the art hikes are $30 for adults and $10 for children (5 to 12 years old) when purchased by July 15. Beginning July 15, art hike admission goes up to $40 per adult and $15 per child. For tickets, go online.

Barney’s in 1961.

Barney’s Casino opened at Stateline in spring 1961. It was operated by majority owners Barney O’Malia and Richard Chartrand.

The Nugget has a storied past in Lake Tahoe. Photos/Bill Kingman

Chartrand also had an early interest in what years later became John’s Tahoe Nugget at Stateline, which was locally popular for featuring seafood and prime rib. Chartrand died in an unsolved car bombing at Skyland in 1968. John’s Tahoe Nugget ultimately closed at the end of 1990.

Totally remodeled and under new ownership, today that building just north of the Douglas County Administrative Center houses restaurants, a UPS Store, and professional business offices.

A casino no longer exists at the site.

Barney’s became Bill’s Casino in 1987 under new ownership by Harrah’s Entertainment. The second floor contained a McDonald’s Restaurant, then a bit of a rarity for the fast food restaurant to be inside a casino.

The former Bill’s Casino.

Bill’s closed in January 2010, however, and the property was sold.

After long and extensive remodeling, the building today houses multiple businesses.

A slew of businesses fill the old Bill’s site.

— Bill Kingman

By Kathryn Reed

Is it any more irrational to believe in God than it is to believe in Bigfoot?

While that is not a direct question posed by Ann Gelder in her first full-length novel “Bigfoot and the Baby,” it is a thread that is woven throughout the book.

This is also Bona Fide Books’ first foray into fiction. The Meyers publishing house will release the book June 13.

It’s 1986 and Jackie Majesky has suddenly become obsessed with God and the need to be saved. Her husband, Kyle, is a chronic TV watcher of a show that tracks Bigfoot. Together they have two daughters – a slightly rebellious and disinterested teenager and a newborn who wails incessantly. That is, until she meets Carl.

In the quest to find – and briefly live in what was to be a Utopian society – the Majeskys are tested in their beliefs of each other and humankind. And while that might sound like everyday life, theirs is anything but that.

Gelder is able to paint a picture with prose to describe a world consumed by materialism and the need to believe in something bigger than us. The characters are believable even in their outlandish moments. That’s part of what is captivating about the book — that while the story is fiction, there are elements of it that seem so plausible.

The book ends in such a manner that a sequel seems possible. But the author says there are no plans at this time to revisit this quirky family.

While clearly the book is fiction, it does make you wonder why people believe in fictional characters they’ve never seen.

At this time Bona Fide has no other works of fiction in the pipeline. In 2015 Bona Fide plans to publish three nonfiction books: “Permanent Vacation II,” “Tahoe Sepia,” and “July & Winter: Farming and Gardening in the Sierra.”

“I didn’t plan to expand into literary fiction, but I read this manuscript a few years ago and couldn’t stop thinking about it. It’s the kind of book I like to read: smart, weird, and funny with great characters,” Kim Wyatt, publisher at Bona Fide, told Lake Tahoe News.

—–

Notes:

• Events:

June 13, 7pm, Lake Tahoe Community College library South Lake Tahoe.

June 14, 10am-1pm Making It Strange: A Workshop for Fiction Writers Bona Fide Books headquarters, Meyers. Sign up here.

June 22, 6pm Tongue and Groove, The Hotel Cafe, 1623 1/2 No. Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood.

June 26, 6-8pm, Village House of Books, 326 Village Lane, Los Gatos.

July 10, 7-9pm, Folio Books, 3957 24th St., San Francisco.

Aug, 14, 7pm, Why There Are Words, Studio 333, Caledonia St., Sausalito.

• The book is available online for $15.

To the community,

As of Friday morning, Measure L had 80.43 percent yes votes. So many people made this happen. The Committee for South Lake Tahoe Library – Measure L worked unceasingly.

Our local media gave us the opportunity to share the high stakes involved in this measure through articles, letters, guest columns, advertising and endorsements. Property owners allowed us to place signs all over town. Countless volunteers shared information with their friends, neighbors and work colleagues.

Most important of all, local voters supported Measure L. As a result of the choice you made on your ballot, South Lake Tahoe is now assured of a fully staffed, high quality public library open five days a week, for the next 12 years.

I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Sincerely,

Kay Henderson, president South Lake Tahoe Friends of the Library and chair of the Committee for South Lake Tahoe Library – Measure L