American Pharoah

by Joe Drape

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  THE LAST WALTZ

  October 31, 2015

  In the pages of the Daily Racing Form, the past performances of his rivals showed that American Pharoah had his work cut out for him to win the Classic. Tonalist had won the previous year’s Belmont Stakes and the Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup four weeks ago in New York. Honor Code, also New York based, already had won the Grade 1 Metropolitan and Whitney handicaps. Gleneagles was here from Europe, where he had won the English and Irish 2,000 Guineas and the St. James’s Palace Stakes. Beholder was the two-time American champion filly, and was a perfect five-for-five for the year. She had beaten the West Coast’s best older male horses by more than eight lengths in the Pacific Classic at Del Mar. Keen Ice, the only horse to vanquish American Pharoah this year, was here, too.

  As accomplished as those horses were, however, they were no more than bit players in the drama that most wanted to see: the Coronation of American Pharoah. Baffert was certain the colt’s last waltz was going to be a memorable one. The Travers loss had drained him of any fear. American Pharoah had not been at his best but had run gamely and barely got beat. Baffert survived, as did Espinoza and Zayat. The colt was fit and ready. In fact, after arriving here on the Tuesday before the race, Baffert acted not only like he was on a farewell tour but also as if he was here to play an exhibition game. He was proud of American Pharoah and wanted his contemporaries to know that he was a great horse.

  “I just wanted to share him with my friends in the sport,” he said.

  He had been after Gary Stevens all summer to come by and get on American Pharoah, only because he knew how much his friend would appreciate the colt’s effortless stride. Stevens did not think it was appropriate and refused the offer. One morning, he urged the trainer Todd Pletcher to grab a hold of American Pharoah’s shank and walk with him.

  “Even the way he walks, it’s incredible mechanics,” Baffert told him.

  Either out of respect for Baffert or fearing that something would go wrong, Pletcher declined to take the shank but agreed to walk alongside Baffert and the colt.

  By Thursday, the chances of American Pharoah running away with the Classic increased, on paper at least, when Beholder had to be scratched from the race. She had shipped to Kentucky two weeks ago in preparation but spiked a fever as soon as she stepped off the plane. Her trainer, Richard Mandella, thought he had it under control but a scope of her lungs found blood, indicating that she had an infection. He did not want to put Beholder under the pressure of a race. Like American Pharoah, the mare had a high cruising speed and was expected to make him run early, as Frosted did in the Travers.

  With her out of the race, that task fell to Smooth Roller, a late-developing four-year-old horse that had run away with the Grade 1 Awesome Again Stakes at Santa Anita Park. The morning of the race, however, Smooth Roller was scratched from the race by state veterinarians who had detected tendon problems in his left foreleg.

  When Espinoza was told the horse had been scratched, he was matter-of-fact.

  “Really?” he asked. “Oh, then, we are home free.”

  The Classic, with its field of eight, was its smallest since 1989 when Sunday Silence turned back rival Easy Goer for the third time. Really, there was only one horse that mattered in this edition of the Classic, and as Barnes led him into the paddock, the backyard of this usually stately racetrack erupted as if the Kentucky Wildcats had scored a touchdown nearby at Commonwealth Stadium.

  American Pharoah circled the crush of people inside the paddock like an old pro. Zayat was looking at him admiringly as he passed and received either a message or omen from the colt.

  “He literally stopped and looked at me and my family,” he said. “Like I’m ready. I’m going to get it done. It’s just… it was an incredible thrill.”

  When Espinoza arrived, he exchanged a glance with Baffert.

  “He’s sharp,” is all the trainer had to say.

  It had been a damp and overcast day, and it began to mist as the horses headed to the racetrack. The backyard and paddock drained like a bathtub as people went inside to make their bets and to return to their seats to see, they hoped, something extraordinary. Baffert was misting up as well.

  “I’ve never been so damn emotional about running a horse,” he said.

  “Stop crying,” Jill Baffert told him.

  They remained in the paddock, as did the Zayats and scores of other people—some they knew, most they didn’t—who all wanted to be close if American Pharoah triumphed as they hoped. As American Pharoah and his seven rivals edged into the starting gate, Baffert and everyone else in this historic racetrack in the heart of the Bluegrass State became deafeningly quiet. You could hear deep breaths. Nothing much was at stake—except the legacy of a horse and the definition of greatness.

  When the gates opened for a final time, Espinoza bounced American Pharoah out of the Number 4 hole and to the rail like they had been pulled by a magnet.

  “Let him run, Victor!” Baffert said as he watched the big screen.

  That is exactly what Espinoza had vowed to do. In each of his previous nine trips aboard American Pharoah, he had been careful to leave something in his tank, save a little something for the next race or the one after that. Even in Saratoga losing the Travers, Espinoza was careful not to push his colt for nothing. He knew American Pharoah was tired and vulnerable and rode him that way. Espinoza was on a two-prong mission—to keep American Pharoah safe and to let the colt go all out in his final spin around a racetrack.

  He did not have to worry about fulfilling either one. He and American Pharoah were ahead by one length at the half-mile mark, three lengths at the three-quarter-mile mark, and five lengths when they hit the stretch. No other horse had gotten near him. It was the most boring and beautiful race that the 50,155 people on their feet and roaring had ever seen.

  “I am gone,” Espinoza told himself.

  In the paddock, Zayat closed his eyes and refused to watch the final eighth of a mile. He knew this race, this run, was over and he was relieved, ecstatic, and sad all at once.

  Zayat was hardly alone. In the past year, American Pharoah had made people remember that horse racing is America’s oldest sport and that rare was the man, woman, or child who did not become short of breath when watching a racehorse running a hole in the wind. In a world filled with smartphones, brain-rattling NFL hits, and presidential debates as spectator sport, there is something soothing and old world about watching a horse rocket around an oval ahead of others just because he can. He reminded them that horse racing is an easy game to love and too often a hard one to like. Horses are beautiful animals. The humans around them mostly are, but in Thoroughbred racing particularly, the miscreants who drugged them, mistreated them, and traded them like commodities degrade the sport and create distrust.

  American Pharoah made most people forget about the cheaters and the hard hearts. He restored the magic to horse racing. It was how he did it that was so mind blowing: bounding out of the gate, begging the other horses to chase him, hitting the ground with elegance and efficiency. When American Pharoah crossed the finish line six and a half lengths ahead of a 33-to-1 long shot named Effinex, he had nothing left to prove. He was triumphant and adored.

  The colt had earned the sustained ovation that he received as Espinoza brought him back to the grandstand. He deserved the tears people spilled for him in the grandstand and the clubhouse here as well as in the living rooms around the nation.

  When Espinoza finally got American Pharoah to the winner’s circle, Baffert reached to offer his rider a handshake.

  “We’ll never have another son of a bitch like this,” he said.

  No, they would not.

  EPILOGUE

  January 18, 2016

  Two days after ending his racing career triumphantly in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, American Pharoah was given a police escort to Ashford Stud to begin his career as a stallion. The Bafferts—Bob, Jill, and Bode—Jimmy Barn
es, George Alvarez, and Eduardo Luna went with him to say their good-byes. He walked off the van and into his retirement shortly after 8:30 a.m. with a media throng looking on for one final time. Baffert kept a bag of baby carrots close and lovingly doled them out to the Triple Crown champ. He could not help feeling like a father dropping his child off at camp. He knew he was leaving American Pharoah in good hands and in a nice place, but it did not make the farewell any easier. When it was time to catch a plane home to California, Baffert leaned into American Pharoah for a final hug before the colt was led back to his barn to adjust to a quieter life.

  He spent his initial weeks alongside Thunder Gulch, the 1995 Kentucky Derby and Belmont winner, now twenty-four years old. The old-timer’s assignment was to teach American Pharoah about life not on the run. New stallions want to play and sprint a lot. If they have company, it only encourages them to do so. Not Thunder Gulch. He was there to teach American Pharoah the finer things in stallion life such as eating grass, whiling away an afternoon on the farm, and saving energy for the mares. Each day the colt was turned out into the fields at daylight, then brought in before lunch and groomed. When the breeding season begins each February, American Pharoah will perform his duties three times daily: at 7:30 in the morning, 1:30 in the afternoon, and 6:00 p.m. in the evening.

  Initially, those will be lucrative assignations. Not long after arriving at Ashford, Coolmore set a stud fee of $200,000 for the first Triple Crown champion available to breeders since Seattle Slew died in 2002. There was no guarantee that American Pharoah would be able to pass on the same genetics that made him a horse for the ages, but the steep price hardly scared anyone away. Ashford had more than 200 applications for the 150 bookings it was allowing for American Pharoah’s first season, which was more than enough to recoup its investment in the horse and make a handsome profit. Among them were some of the most accomplished mares in the sport, such as Take Charge Lady, the dam of 2013 champion three-year-old Will Take Charge and a War Front weanling filly who sold for a record $3.2 million at the Keeneland November sale; Charming, the dam of Take Charge Brandi, the champion two-year-old filly of 2014 who was sold for $6 million at the Keeneland at the same sale; and Rags to Riches, who in 2007 became the first filly since 1905 to win the Belmont Stakes.

  On Saturday, December 19, Frances Relihan had a long-awaited reunion with American Pharoah at Ashford Stud. She had recently resigned as farm manager at Haras Don Alberto and was heading home to Ireland for the holidays to regroup before deciding on what was next for her in the horse business. It was a crisp, sunny morning, and American Pharoah looked magnificent and appeared to be settling nicely into farm life. It was the first one-on-one time she had with him in nearly two years and she thought he remained “full of class.”

  “I’d like to think he remembered me,” she said. “But it is enough to have had the opportunity as a farm manager to have watched him develop and mature as a young horse, before exceeding all imaginable expectations to become one of racing’s all-time greats. To have this personal connection with him is of course very special. But I find myself equally humbled in his presence and in awe of him now as a lifetime racing fan.”

  American Pharoah also made an impact beyond the Thoroughbred industry. He was the overwhelming choice of sports fans to be named Sports Illustrated’s Sportsman of the Year, getting 47 percent of the vote—a total of 278,824—and outpolling the World Series champion Kansas City Royals nearly 2 to 1. When the magazine editors instead named Serena Williams as its honoree, it touched off a noisy brouhaha that kept the debate alive for several days.

  “Total BS,” Justin Zayat tweeted. “Why have a poll if you totally ignore it? Serena FAILED at winning the Grand Slam. AP once-in-a-lifetime horse.”

  The Associated Press righted that wrong somewhat when its voters selected American Pharoah’s Triple Crown sweep the sports story of the year. It was a clear winner over the “Deflategate” scandal that ensnared Super Bowl–winning quarterback Tom Brady of the New England Patriots in allegations that he had directed the doctoring of his footballs.

  Ahmed Zayat had not only campaigned a great horse, but also stabilized the finances of his business. He retained some shares in American Pharoah and was further rewarded when the stud fees of Pioneerof the Nile were more than doubled to $125,000 for 2016.

  Baffert and Espinoza were on an extended victory lap through much of 2015, each picking up a variety of honors and enjoying the perks of fame. Baffert was the celebrity college football picker on ESPN’s College GameDay, and Espinoza appeared on Dancing with the Stars, though it was evident whatever rhythm he had in the saddle didn’t transfer to the ballroom. He was the second contestant voted off the show.

  Both men had experienced a lifetime of memories over the previous year and were coming to terms with their roles in what American Pharoah accomplished.

  For Baffert, it was simply getting the right horse at the right time. He had learned from mistakes on his three failed Triple Crown bids and had benefited from decades of training high-quality horses. When he was growing up, Baffert and his father, The Chief, were in agreement that Secretariat was the greatest horse they had ever seen. He would let other people decide where American Pharoah fit among the immortals, but Baffert was proud that his colt now belonged in the same sentence as Big Red.

  “I never felt like I got to the bottom of Pharoah in a work or race,” Baffert said. “He did everything effortlessly. It’s the damnedest thing I have ever seen.”

  On January, 16, 2016, at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale, Florida, the Thoroughbred industry gathered for the forty-fifth annual Eclipse Awards and to celebrate one of the greatest years in the history of American horse racing. American Pharoah was the unanimous winner of Horse of the Year.

  Baffert took honors for champion trainer and Zayat for owner and breeder. Espinoza inexplicably finished second in voting for champion jockey, but shrugged off the slight.

  Espinoza did not need it. He pointed to his ride on the colt in the Kentucky Derby as the finest moment of his career. He thought they were going to lose and he was forced to push American Pharoah to give all he had.

  “It was the hardest I ever rode in my career,” he said. “I earned the Triple Crown in that race. In my opinion, if anyone else had ridden American Pharoah, he would not have won the race and there would not be a Triple Crown.”

  American Pharoah as a weanling in the summer of 2012 at the Vinery, a breeding farm in central Kentucky.

  Vinery farm manager Frances Relihan was immediately wowed by American Pharoah’s balance, athleticism, and intelligence.

  American Pharoah heading to the racetrack and drawing a crowd at Churchill Downs in the week before the 141st running of the Kentucky Derby.

  Frances Relihan with her husband, Dr. Joe Schneider, hours before America’s greatest race is run.

  Victor Espinoza atop American Pharoah moments after winning the Derby. It was Espinoza’s third triumph in America’s greatest race.

  Victor Espinoza gliding American Pharoah around a rain-drenched racetrack to victory in the second leg of the Triple Crown.

  Ahmed and Justin Zayat take questions as they wait for American Pharoah to arrive from Louisville, Kentucky, to Belmont Park, in New York.

  Victor Espinoza acknowledging the thunderous ovation to American Pharoah winning the Belmont Stakes to become only the 12th Triple Crown champion in history.

  Ahmed and Joanne Zayat celebrating with their children after American Pharoah crosses the finish line at Belmont Park.

  Assistant trainer Jimmy Barnes (left) and groom Eduardo Luna (right) lead American Pharoah to the winner’s circle to officially take his place in Thoroughbred history.

  Victor Espinoza and Ahmed Zayat hoisting the Belmont Stakes trophy.

  The Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert leading Triple Crown champion American Pharoah for a walk at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, New York.

  American Pharoah at his new home at Ashford Stud in Ve
rsailles, Kentucky, where he will stand as a stallion for $200,000 per breeding.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Only the incredibly fortunate get paid to hang out at a racetrack, and I have been among them for nearly two decades. I have made more friends than enemies there (though some will dispute that) and I am grateful to them all for being sources, educators, friends, drinking buddies, and fellow railbirds. There are far too many of you to namecheck, but from Saratoga to California, New York to Kentucky, and every other place where Thoroughbreds are revered, you know who you are. I thank you for making my life (if not exactly my bank account) richer.

  I could not have spent as much time at the track, made as many friends, or learned as much about our nation’s oldest sport without the indulgence and support of a succession of sports editors at the New York Times, Jason Stallman being the latest. Jason et al. have encouraged me to pursue many lines of reporting that have enriched my personal experiences and, I hope in some cases at least, our readers. I am proud to work alongside a talented bunch of editors and reporters in the Sports department. I’m gratified that many of them also are true friends. I need to offer a special shout-out to a couple of them. Melissa Hoppert joins me on the Triple Crown trail each year and appreciates the athletes and people as much as I do. Bob Goetz is equally adept at talking trainer trends and good stories. Fern Turkowitz, I miss you. Carl Nelson, the Big Fella, thank you and————! You are an American Original.

  My editor at Hachette Books, Mauro DiPreta, made this book better with his keen insights and deft editing touch. Thank you, Mauro—now we may move from horses and the racetrack to saints and the Vatican. Ashley Yancey at Hachette kept me on track and scolded me gently when I fell off it. I am lifted by the energy and enthusiasm of Betsy Hulsebosch, Hachette’s director of marketing, had for this book. I appreciate the hard work she and the whole marketing and sales team continue to give it.