American Pharoah

by Joe Drape

  “You got to survive and make money, and you do that by breeding something fashionable that people will buy,” said Hancock, who also has sold half siblings of FuPeg for $1 million to $4 million. “I cannot afford to breed the kind of horses that I once did.”

  So horsemen are getting what they pay for: pedigrees that produce precocious, fast, and fragile runners. American racehorses are less sound than ever. In 1960, for example, the average United States racehorse made 11.3 starts a year; in 2014, the average was 6.2.

  When horse racing was a pastime rather than a business, families like the Whitneys and the Vanderbilts and breeding farms like Calumet and the Hancocks’ Claiborne made stallions out of the horses that had performed well and over time. It was the era of Iron Horses like the 1941 Triple Crown champion, Whirlaway, who made 60 starts in his career, and the 1946 champion, Assault, who raced as a seven-year-old. In fact, the eleven Triple Crown winners together made 104 starts at age four or older and won 57 of them.

  “You used to see a taller Thoroughbred, narrow chested and a bit knock-kneed, who could run forever, but not as fast,” said Dr. Larry Bramlage.

  Affirmed was perhaps the epitome of this body type. He raced twenty-nine times, won twenty-two, and sired more than eighty stakes winners and nine champions. Over the four decades, the billions spent on horses have put a premium on what Bramlage describes as a “toed-in, wide-chested, lighter-bone horse built for speed.”

  American Pharoah was not exactly bred any differently than his modern counterparts—yet he was different. Pioneerof the Nile had made ten career starts, Littleprincessemma just two. He was not built like Affirmed, but so far he had demonstrated that he possessed a similar sort of steel. Baffert had quit trying to explain it.

  “He was just born with that talent,” he said. “He has that long stride. He’s quick. He’s got a really good mind. He just floats over the ground. He’s different, just the way he’s made. What we saw in the Derby is that he’s not one-dimensional, which is so nice to have.”

  In other words, the trainer liked the hand that he had been dealt and he was comfortable here in Baltimore. This was Baffert’s favorite of the three races, partly because he was coming off the high of the Derby and partly because he always knew he had the best horse. There was no training to do in the two weeks prior to the Preakness; either your horse is in form and fit from the road it had to endure to get here or not. Baffert thought American Pharoah had needed a hard race in the Derby and believed he was now more explosive than ever.

  “You have to be in top form to win the Derby, so it’s a matter of keeping them galloping and just getting them there,” he said. “If your horses are coming off a big effort in the Derby and they’ve run well, then they’re pretty tough to beat.”

  Six workouts in thirty-three days and two easy races was not the path Baffert normally chose for his contenders. He had no choice, though, after American Pharoah overextended his knee and had to be sidelined. Baffert had watched the replay of the Derby dozens of times and believed the colt was never really in trouble at any part in the race and Espinoza had helped him find another gear that the colt had yet to employ and might need in the future. The Derby was the Derby and the one race Baffert will never tire of winning.

  “If you win that race, you can’t wait to win it again,” Baffert said. “The winner’s circle at Churchill Downs must be the most expensive real estate in the world because so much money has been spent trying to get there.”

  Baffert appreciated the more relaxed atmosphere at Pimlico, a scuffed up old track offering more charm than class or comfort. Lore had it that the name Pimlico came from the English settlers who inhabited the 129 acres on which the racetrack was built. They were a nostalgic bunch and yearned for the famous landmark near London that they had left behind: Olde Ben Pimlico’s Tavern. Since opening its doors in 1870, the Old Hilltop, as it is called, has been visited by history in odd and significant ways. The United States House of Representatives adjourned on October 24, 1887, so the distinguished gentlemen could watch a horse named Parole beat Ten Broeck and Tom Ochiltree in what has become known as the Great Race. It was here that Seabiscuit defeated War Admiral in a celebrated match race in 1938. Alfred G. Vanderbilt, a former prep school bookie and a sporting scion of one of America’s most celebrated families, had orchestrated the race for the track that he owned and a sport he dearly loved.

  “Pimlico is more than a dirt track bounded by four streets,” he once said. “It is an accepted American institution, devoted to the best interests of a great sport, graced by time, respected for its honorable past.”

  These days, Baffert considered Pimlico and the Preakness more like going to camp. It was the jeans-and-shirtsleeve stop on the Triple Crown trail, closer to Nogales, Arizona, than New York, New York. The horses all shared the same barn, so Baffert had the opportunity to catch up with fellow trainers like D. Wayne Lukas and mingle with the handful or fans who wandered through each morning. He had chosen stall 30 in the middle of the barn for American Pharoah instead of the spot usually reserved for the Derby winner, stall 40, which was on the corner for all to see. He was taking no chances.

  Baffert acted as if he had been turned out to pasture after a hard race himself, speaking to anyone and everyone each morning. He had been asked the same questions a million times by the media but seemed to enjoy reciting the answers all over again, especially when asked by regular fans who had brought their kids to see American Pharoah and play hooky for the day. Who did he like better, American Pharoah or Dortmund?

  “They’re all like my children,” he told a group of them. “They all have their quirks. Dortmund is just a quirky, big, awkward kid. He’s also gentle, but he gets a little bit excited and he’s quick on his feet, so you want to make sure he doesn’t step on your toes.”

  He also had come up with new material about American Pharoah’s sawed-off tail. When he first got the colt, Baffert wanted to correct it with extensions, which are made with real hair. Zayat refused to let him. He liked being able to pick his horse out in the morning and thought the look was distinctive.

  “The legend goes that he was running wild in a field, and a mountain lion was chasing him and that’s as close as he could get to him,” Baffert said, “but nobody really knows.”

  He also was having fun showing off his favorite horse, Smokey, the buckskin-colored pony he had bought primarily to teach Bode how to ride, but also as a calming companion to the high-strung Thoroughbreds in the barn. Smokey accompanied American Pharoah to the track for his timed workouts and waited there to greet him when training was over and it was time for him to return to the barn. He was also on the track after American Pharoah won the Derby; Baffert had loaned him to NBC’s Donna Barton, who does the post-race interview of the winning jockey on horseback. Mostly Baffert himself rode Smokey. It not only relaxed him, but reminded him that he was a former jockey from a border town who owed his life to horses.

  Baffert wanted people to know that he was a contented man, one who had tried humility on and found that it fit him. The previous year, Art Sherman had played this role beautifully, primarily because at close to eighty years old, he was comfortable in his own skin, and he knew that another colt like California Chrome coming into his life was highly unlikely. Sherman was not a complicated man and was proud of a life that was longer on memories than it was on bankroll. Sixty years ago, he was a Brooklyn kid in California learning about horses from a crew of cowboys. In 1955, Sherman was a teenage exercise rider who shared a boxcar from California with the colt Swaps for four days on their way to Churchill Downs, where they won the Derby. He survived them and became a jockey, mostly for broke horsemen on both coasts, before finding his true gift on backwater shedrows. Sherman and Baffert knew each other a bit and the Triple Crown newbie asked the veteran Baffert for his advice along the way.

  In return, Baffert got to watch how joyously Sherman won his Derby and how gracefully he navigated a journey like no other in their sport. It
was another little nudge for Baffert to approach his life and his career differently. He was an old man with a young boy and four older children he wanted to know better. He missed his parents more than he ever thought and wanted his children to feel the same away about him.

  “You don’t know how much I appreciated this Derby with my family,” he said. “You don’t know how grateful I am. The Triple Crown is more for history and the media and New Yorkers. I wanted to win the Kentucky Derby this year. I knew it was mine to lose. I really didn’t think I had that many more opportunities left to win another one.”

  The Zayats were AWOL much of the week leading up to the race. Ahmed was in Egypt for business and then attending a wedding in Israel. The profile of Zayat and his family had risen in the wake of American Pharoah’s triumph in Louisville, and one of the most pursued angles in the national and international press was the fact that the family were devout Orthodox Jews. Reports from Cairo to Jerusalem and from news agencies as varied as the Associated Press and the Jewish Standard told of how the Zayats kept kosher and brought in recreational vehicles to racetrack parking lots before Saturday races, as they did here at Pimlico, because they were not permitted motorized travel on the Jewish Sabbath. The RVs often overflowed with friends and family, and the Zayats were clearly having a ball.

  However, Ahmed Zayat was uncomfortable being identified publicly as a Jewish Egyptian businessman who had made a fortune selling beer to largely Muslim countries, especially after the Arab spring and the fall of Hosni Mubarak. The government that had helped his family build a fortune was gone. He still had business and family in Eqypt. Zayat tried, and mostly failed, to keep the news coverage mute on that aspect of his life.

  Justin was taking his final exams at New York University, where he was graduating in a few weeks with an economics major. His duties as racing manager, however, intruded when D. Wayne Lukas engineered an eleventh-hour purchase of Mr. Z for another of his clients, Calumet Farm. The colt was a well-beaten thirteenth in the Derby and Ahmed and Justin wanted to end his spring season and bring him back in the summer.

  Lukas was already in Baltimore with Mr. Z, and he hated missing big races. He knew he didn’t have many opportunities left to run in them. Over the past forty years, he had more wealthy owners than any single horse trainer deserves and the latest was Brad Kelley, the billionaire founder of Commonwealth Brands tobacco company and the fourth largest landowner in the United States. Lukas had won this race two years ago for him with Oxbow, and Kelley was willing to take another shot with Mr. Z.

  Ahmed’s kids had named the colt Mr. Z after their father, but he was not going to let sentiment get in the way of negotiating a deal and putting some money back into Zayat Stables. So on the morning that entries to the Preakness were due, Justin in New York, Ahmed in the Middle East, and Lukas in Baltimore hashed out a deal to sell Mr. Z to Calumet and perhaps deny American Pharoah from winning the Preakness. Business is business.

  “Wayne is at the barn at three-thirty and he’s eighty years old and who knows how many more Triple Crown races he has left,” Zayat said. “If he wins, the first thing I’ll do is go over there and give him a big kiss.”

  So, with Mr. Z switching to the silks of Calumet Farm, a compact field of eight was signed on to contest the 140th running of the Preakness Stakes on Saturday, May 16, 2015, and Vanderbilt’s granddaddy of a racetrack was having some problems. It had lost most of its water supply due to a broken water pipe two miles away—not a good thing when you have a record crowd of 131,680 steaming away in thick humidity as rain clouds crowded the sky. On race day, Baffert’s backside camp for horse trainers turned into one of the rowdiest and drunkest revelries in all of sports, especially in the infield where rock and hip-hop bands provided welcome distraction from the binge drinking.

  Some wacky events have marked the Pimlico’s proud heritage as well. On a sweltering day in 1998, a power outage left more than 91,000 people without air-conditioning, working elevators, working escalators, and, worst of all, working betting machines for several hours. The next year, three races before Charismatic secured a Preakness victory for two-thirds of the Triple Crown, a man made his way onto the track from the infield to face down a thundering herd of nine horses in the stretch and take a punch at the 4-to-5 favorite, a horse named Artax.

  Horseplayers had been checking the weather radar all afternoon for the storm that was rumbling toward Pimlico. The theory being that a wet track made American Pharoah a lock to win this second leg of the Triple Crown. Baffert wasn’t so sure. He knew his colt had sliced his way like a Jet Ski to a six-and-a-quarter-length win two months ago on a sloppy track in Arkansas. Forty-five minutes before the race, the skies were getting scary as Baffert held Bode by the hand and followed American Pharoah from the stakes barn into the indoor paddock area to get his colt saddled. Baffert and his fellow trainers were in a rush, trying to get their horses ready before the coming deluge. They had no control over whether the race would be run before Mother Nature intruded but hurried as if they could beat her.

  American Pharoah was acting as if he was a professional racehorse. There were no antics or agitation as there was in Louisville. He turned in circles calmly like a boxer stalking the ring and awaiting the opening bell. Jimmy Barnes and Eduardo Luna led the colt across the racetrack to the turf course with the Bafferts following them. Victor Espinoza sidled up alongside the trainer and told him that he liked what he saw.

  “If he fires, you’ll win,” he said. “If he doesn’t, then we just go back and blame it on the rain or whatever.”

  Espinoza grinned and hopped aboard.

  As he and American Pharoah led the post-parade onto the track, a thunder boomer opened up the skies, sending the infield crowd scurrying for cover. Rain was strafing the horses hard enough that Espinoza’s light blue and gold silks vanished. So did the pastels of his rivals’ silks. Baffert, with Jill and Bode, hustled back to the indoor paddock.

  Espinoza, his boots filling up with water, had a moment of clarity. He was drenched and uncomfortable, and as he walked his colt toward the starting gate, he made a decision. He was going to get American Pharoah out of the gate quickly and take this field gate to wire and to victory and to New York and the Belmont Stakes. No mud was going to be kicked in his colt’s face. The rain let up a bit as the field approached the starting gate. Espinoza inched American Pharoah into the Number 1 hole and saw before him a rush of water rolling through a ditch that was supposed to be his running path. When NBC showed the river on its telecast, Baffert and his wife winced.

  “That’s not fair,” said Jill Baffert.

  When the gates opened, however, the plan that Espinoza had hatched was in trouble. American Pharoah’s back end swung out, causing him to leave the gate late. Espinoza crossed his reins, smooched to him, and scrubbed his neck, and suddenly American Pharoah was floating like a swamp buggy atop the water, leaving first Mr. Z and then his stablemate Dortmund in his wake. On the outside, Stevens and Firing Line had fallen out of the starting gate and were staggering five wide. Espinoza knew he didn’t have to worry about them. Their race was over.

  American Pharoah splashed through the opening quarter mile in :22.90—too fast but Espinoza had little choice after missing the break. He pulled back on him a touch but still reached the half mile in 46.49 seconds and the three-quarter-mile mark in 1:11.42. It was quick, dangerously quick. Espinoza was in front and beneath him American Pharoah was moving so easily he peeked under his arm to see if any other horse was actually going with him.

  Behind him, Corey Nakatani, aboard Mr. Z, believed he had American Pharoah measured. “He was in it,” Nakatani thought.

  Martin Garcia, atop Dortmund, knew he was in trouble. His colt had never had mud kicked in his face and was ducking his head, trying to avoid it, and was unable to find his best stride.

  Espinoza knew the race was over. He dropped his hands and American Pharoah powered off like he was a motorcycle and his pilot had just throttled down. In the pad
dock, watching the colt gliding down the backside, Baffert was on his toes, feeling a flutter in his heart. He watched American Pharoah’s ears go up.

  “Oh yeah, oh yeah,” he said.

  Espinoza was relaxed atop the colt as he leaned toward the rail and braced for the stretch. Baffert’s wife, Jill, tugged on her husband’s sleeve as a pack of horses seemed to close in on American Pharoah.

  “He’s waiting, he’s waiting, to let him go,” Baffert told her.

  When Mr. Z got within a half length, Espinoza crossed his reins, gave American Pharoah his head, relaxed, and enjoyed the ride. The rider and his colt hit the stretch four lengths ahead. There was no need for Espinoza to get into American Pharoah here. He waved his whip at the colt one, two, three, four times—not hitting him but like a maestro setting the time for his players. American Pharoah then rolled down the lane with the force of a waterfall. By the time Espinoza crossed the finish line, he and American Pharoah were seven lengths ahead of the long shots Tale of Verve and Divining Rod.

  “Great horses do great things,” Baffert said, his voice choking. The tears coming again.

  In the clubhouse, Lukas was the first to get to Ahmed Zayat. He hugged him and kissed him on the cheek.

  Jimmy Barnes found his boss, reached for his hand, and pulled him close.

  “One more time,” he told him.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE SPORT WITHOUT A STAR IS NOT A SPORT

  June 6, 2015

  Once more, horse racing aficionados had bounce in their step. For the fourteenth time in the last thirty-six years, a horse was going to pull into Belmont Park with an opportunity to become the twelfth Triple Crown champion and the first since Affirmed in 1978. That phrase had been written countless times, referring to thirteen other horses, including California Chrome the previous year. Three of them were colts trained by Bob Baffert. Now there was a fourth, American Pharoah, the colt that looked like a cigarette boat skimming atop a sloppy track in Baltimore and was coming to New York to try to close the deal on immortality.