by Joe Drape
When Birdstone passed Smarty Jones in the last 70 yards, Durkin, along with most everyone else at Belmont, was crushed. When California Chrome came up short the previous year, a frustrated Durkin tossed his headset in the booth. It was a hole in a Hall of Fame resume that would never be filled.
Now here Collmus, forty-eight and having honed his craft over thirty years at racetracks from Alabama to Massachusetts and Florida to California, had an opportunity to crown a champion less than six months into his new job. He had a couple of possible phrases ready if the feat occurred, but he did not want to be overly scripted. Collmus spent much of the day praying for clouds to roll in, because as dusk settles on sunny days at Belmont Park, the horses are completely backlit as they turn for home. On sunny days, the silks, which Collmus relied on to identify the horses, turn black, shadows set in, and he cannot see for certain who’s who until mid-stretch.
With ninety minutes before post time, there was not a cloud in the sky.
In the Baffert barn, things were getting busy as well as strange. In the week before the race, the Zayats, Baffert, and Espinoza all entertained deal offers from sponsors eager to have their products linked with what was hopefully the twelfth Triple Crown Champion. The winners were Monster Energy drink; Wheels Up, a luxury jet share company; and Burger King. Wearing a logoed ball cap, as Zayat and Espinoza did for Wheels Up, was one thing, but letting the fetching Monster Girls lead American Pharoah into the saddling paddock was quite another. The Monster people had hoped to put its logo on American Pharoah’s bridle, reins, or shadow roll. That was a non-starter as Baffert, ever superstitious, worried the slightest alteration to the colt’s routine would change his luck. With sponsors, media members, and fans milling around, Baffert rubbed Smokey’s head for luck as he did before all big races and headed to the racetrack.
In the jockeys’ room, Espinoza was running on the treadmill. He had gone to bed early the night before and slept in until 10:30 a.m. He was also relaxed enough to catch a mid-afternoon nap. Espinoza had had two mounts earlier in the card, including a third-place finish aboard Sky Kingdom in the Brooklyn Handicap; that was an important race because it was the exact mile-and-a-half distance of the Belmont. This was the only mile-and-a-half oval in America and was a tough track to navigate for visiting jockeys. The turns were long—1,000 yards versus Churchill’s 770 yards. They were so sweeping that Espinoza often felt that he was not on a turn at all. Belmont Park rewarded the patient and precise rider who could fight the impulse to hurtle his horse into the turn or even turn him loose on the top of it. Instead, more often than not, a winning ride was launched coming out of the turn and into its never-ending stretch. Much had been made of Espinoza’s poor record here. He had won only four races in seventy-nine mounts, and the rides he was most remembered for here were War Emblem and California Chrome’s failed bids. However, Espinoza knew that he had never been here with a horse like American Pharoah and was confident he was about to make a lasting memory.
Jimmy Barnes led American Pharoah into the paddock at Belmont Park while thousands of people lined up ten deep to get a look at the colt. The Monster Girls, indeed, were in tow and dressed almost demurely in black. Baffert made the walk from his barn to the paddock with his family. He had Bode by the hand, and Taylor, Canyon, Forest, and his daughter Savannah trailed behind them. In 1998, he had held four-year-old Savannah in his arms as they watched Real Quiet stagger down the stretch to get caught by a nostril by Victory Gallop. This was the first time ever that Baffert had all of his children at a Triple Crown race, which meant more to him now than whatever happened. Everything felt just right. Baffert knew he was having a good day when he passed a group of Jamaican horseplayers he recognized from his three previous bids. Instead of heckling Baffert as they had in the past, telling him that they were going to bet against his horse, they offered encouragement: “It’s your day, mon.”
Earlier in the day, he had spoken with Penny Chenery, who bred and owned Secretariat. It was her horse that set the modern standard for greatness in a racehorse on June 9, 1973, when he won the Belmont by thirty-one lengths, breaking the margin-of-victory record set by Triple Crown winner Count Fleet in 1943. He also ran the fastest mile and a half on dirt in history, at 2:24. Secretariat broke the stakes record by more than 2 seconds, and his time works out to a speed of 37.5 mph for his entire performance.
“Secretariat is widening now! He is moving like a tremendous machine!” is how CBS television announcer Chic Anderson described the colt’s stretch run.
Now ninety-three, Chenery had been coming to this race for thirty-seven years, waiting for one more horse and its owner to join this small and select fraternity. None had done so.
Zayat, surrounded by his family and friends, stood near the statue of Secretariat in the center of the paddock, trying to contain himself. He could not. His colt was the 3-to-5 favorite to win the race on the tote board and was 1-to-9 in his, and most people’s, hearts. He turned to Joanne.
“Are you ready to become the owner of the twelfth Triple Crown champion?” he asked her.
Espinoza emerged from the jockeys’ room with his six rivals and friends—all wearing polished boots, white pants, and Day-Glo silks and caps. Gary Stevens, Kent Desormeaux, and Mike Smith were colleagues from California and each was in the Hall of Fame. John Velazquez was as well but was based in New York, as were Irad Ortiz, Joel Rosario, and Javier Castellano. They stopped beneath a tree and arranged themselves around some wrought-iron chairs for the traditional photo portrait of the Belmont jockeys. When they were finished, Espinoza accepted the murmurs of “good luck” from them with a nod and went to find Baffert.
Espinoza thought the trainer was calmer than he had been in Louisville and Maryland. He was confident, too.
“Dude, he is ready. Go ahead and ride him with confidence,” Baffert told Espinoza. “That’s the only way, ride him with extreme confidence, put him on the lead. Go for it. If he doesn’t make it, don’t worry about it; we tried.”
Barnes grabbed Espinoza’s leg and vaulted him atop American Pharoah and off they went to the racetrack, escorted by a convoy of television cameras and still photographers. Espinoza heard the song “New York, New York” and the voices of 90,000 people singing along with Frank Sinatra before they made it to the breezeway.
And find I’m A number one…
Top of the list…
King of the hill…
A number one!
Espinoza allowed it to wash over him as he paraded American Pharoah past the grandstand. It was electric. He gave his colt a nudge and American Pharoah bowed his neck, pricked his ears, and galloped into the backstretch.
In a box on the second-floor clubhouse, the Bafferts took their seats with Jill and Bode flanking Bob, and Forest, Canyon, and Savannah a row behind them. They were joined by the costumed, plastic-headed “Burger King.” The fast-food company had paid Baffert $200,000 for their character to stay close enough to be in camera shots—money the trainer had pledged to four horse charities, including Old Friends and the Permanently Disabled Jockeys Fund.
Nearby, the Zayats were on their feet in a knot, with Justin behind with both hands on his father’s shoulders.
As Espinoza and American Pharoah shuffled into the Number 5 post, Collmus asked the question that everyone was awaiting the answer to.
“Is today the day? Is he the one?”
They would have the answer in less than two and a half minutes.
Suddenly, the bell rang and the gates swung open, but it startled American Pharoah and he snapped back on his heels. Just as quickly, Espinoza felt the colt uncoil and spring forward and within two jumps, they had catapulted ahead of his seven rivals and glided into the first turn like a marble circling a roulette wheel. Espinoza knew the race was over then. Beneath him was a horse that he barely recognized, one with a new depth of power. American Pharoah was hitting the ground as if he were walking on clouds. He was stretching as supplely as a yogi.
Behind him,
Velazquez on Materiality sensed Espinoza was sitting on a ton of horse. He was just cruising along, running unhurried quarter miles at 24-second clips. He was on a fresh horse; now he needed to find out how fast Materiality was. He asked his colt to start chasing American Pharoah down the backstretch. Espinoza let Materiality get within a head but smooched in his colt’s ear and shook him off at the mile mark.
“Steady, steady,” he whispered to American Pharoah.
Mubtaahij, from Dubai, took a run at him on the far turn but got within only three lengths before peeling back. Revving up outside him, however, was the late-running Frosted. American Pharoah was pulling on him, wanting to go. Espinoza gave him a little rein but slowly reeled him back in. He didn’t want to choke him down. Frosted’s jockey, Joel Rosario, scrubbed the gray colt’s neck and got within four, three, and two and a half lengths.
As American Pharoah came out of the far turn and squared his shoulders, Espinoza stared down the long withering stretch of Belmont Park as a sense of inevitability surged through its mammoth old grandstand. It was go time, and the crowd strained on the tips of their toes and let out a roar from deep in their souls. It was going to end, finally, please—this thirty-seven-year search for a great racehorse. This battered old sport needed another immortal Thoroughbred, one worthy to stand alongside Sir Barton and Gallant Fox, Omaha and War Admiral, Whirlaway and Count Fleet, Assault and Citation, Secretariat, Seattle Slew, and Affirmed. In the time it took to find a twelfth Triple Crown champion, America had elected five presidents, fought three wars, and lived through at least three economic downturns.
As American Pharoah bounded into the stretch amid a deafening roar, the memories of the gritty Affirmed, the speedy Seattle Slew, and that tremendous machine Secretariat were summoned from backside to grandstand, and rightfully so. No one doubted that American Pharoah was about to enter the history books. He was bouncing down the lane as if jumping from one trampoline to another, and no one was going to catch him.
Baffert was transported. He had come here before, certain that he had a horse that belonged among the giants of racing, only to feel his heart ascend to his throat. That was not going to happen here today, though. He had watched Secretariat win the Belmont with his father on a little television set with rabbit ears in a VFW lodge in Arizona. God, he wished the Chief and his mom, Ellie, were here to see this. The crowd was thundering and Baffert was a fan again, not a Hall of Fame trainer.
In the saddle, Espinoza felt a rush that had twice eluded him. He dropped the reins on his colt and let the muscled bay take him home. When he was a boy in his native Mexico, Espinoza had been afraid of horses, but now more than ever he felt the gift they had given him. Beneath him, American Pharoah’s strides were getting longer and longer, but Espinoza felt as if he were riding the colt in slow motion.
Far behind him, Stevens, Velazquez, Ortiz—every rider except Rosario aboard Frosted—had their heads tilted to the infield, watching the stretch run on the giant screen there. Stevens felt the tears stinging his eyes as they gathered in his goggles. Espinoza hit American Pharoah with his right hand once, twice—more like taps than thumps—three, four, and five and snapped off to a four-length lead. At the sixteenth pole, Collmus had seen enough and let loose the phrase that had been tumbling in his mind for days: “The thirty-seven-year wait is over. American Pharoah is finally the one.”
When Espinoza crossed the finish line five and a half lengths ahead, he finally allowed a smile to curl at the corner of his mouth and the raucous celebration to reverberate deep in his bones. Flowers cascaded down from the upper tiers of the clubhouse and tears spilled along with beers as strangers fell into each other’s arms, ecstatic.
“Holy shit!” Espinoza said after powering the colt down on the first turn and being gathered up by an outrider. “Wow. Wow. He’s just an amazing horse.”
He turned and galloped American Pharoah the length of the grandstand and let a thunderstruck crowd cheer the sublime performance of a once-in-a-lifetime athlete. Espinoza could barely catch his breath.
In the clubhouse, Jill Baffert swung her arms around her husband and buried her wet cheeks into Bob’s chest. He could not talk as other trainers pushed through the crowd to congratulate him.
“That horse is too good,” said Todd Pletcher, the trainer of Materiality.
Kiaran McLaughlin, the trainer of Frosted, shook his hand.
Ahmed Zayat was a puddle by the time he got his trainer in a bear hug.
In the breezeway near the winner’s circle, Frances Relihan had goose bumps listening to the thunderous ovation the colt was getting, a colt she knew as a weanling in the quiet of the Bluegrass. Jimmy Barnes was stoic, holding a tearful Dana, until he saw Espinoza returning American Pharoah from his victory lap. He ran onto the track, grabbed hold of the colt, and burst into tears.
“We all wanted it,” Zayat said when they finally converged in the winner’s circle. “We wanted it for the sport.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE VICTORY LAP
August 2, 2015
Everyone knows there is no cheering in the press box, and crying is frowned upon as well. Both rules were violated as American Pharoah thundered down the stretch and into the record books. It was a perfect moment that the sport had been longing for, and it was clear that Ahmed Zayat, Bob Baffert, and Victor Espinoza understood that.
“He’s the one that won—it wasn’t me,” Baffert said, still fighting back tears. “It was the horse. We were passengers.”
The following morning, Baffert and Espinoza were on NBC’s Weekend Today with American Pharoah standing behind them eating carrots from the trainer’s hand. The colt looked in better shape than his human connections. Espinoza had been out all night and had not slept a wink. He had a first pitch to throw out at the New York Yankees game and an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon still ahead of him.
Baffert was hoarse and ready to catch a flight back to California in the afternoon. Jimmy and Dana Barnes were taking American Pharoah back to Louisville for a well-earned vacation at Churchill Downs.
So now what? Coolmore had purchased the stallion rights for American Pharoah to stand at Ashford Stud, but Zayat had retained the right to race him through the rest of the year. He insisted that he was going to do so.
“I take this very responsibly. I think it’s a huge, huge honor and privilege, and we owe it to the sport to do the right thing,” he said.
By winning the Triple Crown, American Pharoah had just given horse racing a badly needed shot in the arm. More than 18.6 million people watched the race on television, the third highest rated Belmont Stakes in history. The colt was home page news globally on websites and in newspapers, celebrated on sports channels, and on network television, and his performance was dissected and relived on radio talk shows. It was not solely that a Triple Crown sweep had been a long time coming that attracted the attention of casual sports fans. It was how American Pharoah had done it: with grit in the Derby, brilliance in the Preakness, and dominance in the Belmont.
American Pharoah’s final time of 2:26.65 was the sixth fastest Belmont of all time, but Penny Chenery, ever protective of the legacy of Secretariat, characterized it as “not fast enough.”
Neither Secretariat nor the four others horses that ran faster in the Belmont—Gallant Man (1957), Risen Star (1988), Easy Goer (1989), or A.P. Indy (1992)—had run the final quarter mile faster than the :24.32 American Pharoah did after leading every step of the way. In fact, none of them had run the final two quarters as fast as he had.
“Every time he runs, he shows me something we’ve never seen,” Baffert said.
Even the most casual sports fan recognized and was moved by sublime athletic achievement, and over the previous five weeks, American Pharoah had reminded them what an ethereal creature a Thoroughbred was and how beautiful it was in full flight. The colt had graced the cover of Sports Illustrated and had crashed the NBA finals of a sort. After game three of the series, Steve Kerr,
the Golden State Warriors coach, was asked if there was a better athlete than LeBron James. “Maybe American Pharoah,” he said.
The colt had extinguished the talk of changing the distances or giving horses more time to rest between the three races. Even Baffert had started thinking that it never was going to be achieved again under the current system, that the breed had become too weak. Now he knew the sport had to wait on superior horses, and American Pharoah had proven that they don’t come around that often.
Baffert, too, felt beholden to show off his Triple Crown champion. He also understood that the health and the reputation of American Pharoah were his first responsibility.
He and the Chief had been heartbroken when a horse named Onion defeated Secretariat in the Whitney Handicap the August following Big Red’s Triple Crown sweep. He had seen Affirmed and Seattle Slew get beat as well after winning the Triple Crown. In fact, the three most recent Triple Crown champions won only five of their combined eleven races as three-year-olds.
“I don’t want to see that,” he said. “I want to make sure that when you see him out there, you can feel good about it.”
Zayat, on the other hand, had something to sell as well as share with the sporting world: the Big Horse. So far, American Pharoah had won seven of eight races for more than $4.5 million purses. It was no secret Coolmore wanted the colt retired immediately to Ashford Stud rather than risking injury or perhaps even diminishing his value with a poor performance or two. With the bonuses for winning the three legs of the Triple Crown, Coolmore had $14 million invested in the colt. No stud fee had been set for American Pharoah, but it was projected to be at least $150,000 a breeding. Do the math—if American Pharoah was booked to 150 mares, which was likely, Coolmore was due to collect $22.5 million, or $8.5 million in profit the first year alone.