American Pharoah JUNE 6, 2015 THEY SAID HE couldn''t do it. They said he wouldn''t win. They seemed to be everywhere: pessimists and naysayers in newspapers, in sports magazines and on the Internet. Sure, he was an impressive three-year-old horse, this American Pharoah who first became famous for having a misspelled name and a chewed-off tail. But no way would he be a Triple Crown winner, winning three races in five weeks--the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, the Belmont Stakes. The reasons were longer than a chore list. * So what if he does have the great Secretariat in his bloodline? His mother was a sprinter. He doesn''t have what it takes to go a mile and a half in the Belmont.
* Look at his times! His final quarter mile in his Kentucky Derby win was a crawling 26.57 seconds. That''s like a kiddie car on a freeway. * Other greats--Seattle Slew, Citation, Count Fleet--those Triple Crown winners were old-timey Thoroughbreds, bred to be heartier, stronger, tougher. This kid, Pharoah, will be toast. * Today, no horse can handle that schedule--win the Kentucky Derby, then two weeks later, the Preakness, and after only a three-week rest, win the longest race of them all, the Belmont, with its grueling one and a half miles. The first two take too much out of them; they need recovery time. * If a truly great horse, Spectacular Bid, couldn''t get it done in 1979, don''t expect any horse to secure American horse racing''s most coveted sweep.
After all, in his career, Spectacular Bid ran thirty races and won twenty-six, and one of his only losses was the Belmont. The Triple Crown is the hardest prize to win in all American sports. It hasn''t been done in thirty-seven years. Sorry, Pharoah, nice try, but you''re running against history. * If he doesn''t draw a good post position for tactical advantage, it''s, So long, Pharoah, it was nice to know ya. * The best recipe for a Triple Crown is a truly great horse in a weak year. American Pharoah might be a great horse, but this is not a weak year. Even a scientific study before the Belmont showed why American Pharoah would not win.
It cited glycogen levels used up during intense exercise. It pointed out that the muscle power used in his wins in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness would not have had time to repair. And then there was the point about the wear and tear on a Thoroughbred''s skeleton. Poor Pharoah. He was called a loser before he even began. Only eleven horses had won the Triple Crown. Yet in the midst of this time when It can''t be done was a cool thing to say, a dark brown horse walked into the starting gate to change America''s mind. Some would never want to admit that they needed this: to behold a breathing half-wild creature with a heart born of willingness to burst through history.
In this time when meanness, bullying, shooting down dreams, and worrying about the world rose from frustration and confusion to look smart in agreeing to nothing, something was about to happen. It was the sort of thing that appears only once in a great while--as when Mozart sat down at a piano or Michelangelo put his brush to the ceiling at the Sistine Chapel and his sculpting tool to a hunk of stone. A miracle was about to happen. That is, for those who took the time to look. * * * Victor Espinoza, five foot two, worn from his forty-three years of outrunning poverty, hunkered in the saddle on the back of American Pharoah in the starting gate and heard his stomach growl. Today he had already ridden a handful of races, and now he was about to take off in the big one. The Big one, the Belmont for the Triple Crown. "Don''t think of it; you might jinx yourself," he silently coached himself.
But boy, was he hungry! Usually he had two rituals on race day: to take a nap and to pray. He prayed for safety and health. He napped to conserve energy. But today he''d had no time for a nap. Yet how much good would a nap really do? Excitement about the chance to win the Triple Crown would have peppered his z''s. Besides, he''d been here twice before. And each time, winning had eluded him. When he talked to himself, he often used Spanish, the language he had grown up with.
Born in the town of Tulancingo in the state of Hidalgo, Mexico, on May 23, 1972, one of twelve children, he was now surprised to be the oldest jockey in this race. For someone who grew up taking care of goats--leading them up a mountain before school so they could eat all day, then going all the way up again to bring them back before supper--he''d learned long ago never to have dreams. Dreams could break your heart. But goals--now, having goals was a different matter. And here he was, fulfilling one of his highest: riding in the Belmont, going for the Triple Crown for the third time. Most never even got a first chance. The others that he''d ridden in the Belmont Stakes with a chance at the Triple Crown were splendid horses, the best of the best: War Emblem in 2002 and California Chrome in 2014. But California Chrome had come up short in the stretch.
War Emblem had stumbled coming out of the starting gate, totally jinxing his chances, ending up eighth. Oh, that moment at the start! It could mean everything, and Pharoah himself liked to shift his feet in the starting gate. What if . No. One mustn''t go there--not to the badlands of "what could happen." Besides, this time felt a bit different. In the year that he and American Pharoah had been a team, he had not yet asked the big bay colt for his highest gear, his greatest speed. No one really knew what the colt was capable of.
Even more unusual than his blazing speed was the colt''s temperament. Often young racehorse stallions are so aggressive that being around them requires handlers to watch out for their fingers and toes. Aggressive young horses can bite as quickly as a rattlesnake strike. They can whirl about at the drop of a leaf to land on someone''s toes. While Pharoah could be aggressive around other horses and as nervous as a feral barn cat--especially since he was sensitive to the noise of a crowd--Victor had found that Pharoah was also so gentle and trusting that the young horse could actually fall asleep in his arms. And here Victor was about to ask this kind creature to put away a field of seven aggressive three-year-old Thoroughbreds and stomp open the pages of racehorse history. In the starting gate, post position five, American Pharoah shifted his feet as usual--right, left, and then back. The big bay horse didn''t know that a trophy waited at the end of the track.
He didn''t know what money was. He didn''t know about a human''s hunt for glory. Even if he had known, he wouldn''t have cared. He simply had to trust and obey the human on his back, who was only necessary as the supporting player to release what was never quenched: the urge to run, to run. It didn''t even matter where. The challenge now was to wait. Three more horses had to load for this total field of eight. A big Thoroughbred named Frammento was in the starting gate on his left.
Now on his right, the impressive gray, Frosted, was led in, followed by the click of the gate tucking him in. Thank goodness for the earplugs to snuff out most of the noise; otherwise Pharoah was likely to go bonkers now. After his first race, it had been discovered that he was supersensitive to sound, which could set off an anxiety that would use him up. So always now, he wore earplugs. The seats were all sold out. The crowd had been limited to ninety thousand. Most of those were now on tiptoe, their sense of excitement passing from one to the other in a heightening roar. Not many in the crowd--along with some twenty million others watching on television--really expected to see a winner break the long Triple Crown dry spell.
Three decades of seeing twelve horses qualify for the Crown by winning both the Kentucky Derby and Preakness but fail to win the Belmont had tempered racehorse fans'' expectations. In 2012 a horse ironically named I''ll Have Another could have made the elite list of contenders thirteen, but he had been scratched from the Belmont with an injury. Yet, despite the dry spell of having no Triple Crown winner since 1978 with Affirmed, and the year before with Seattle Slew, those who were there quietly held on to the possibility of seeing something breathtakingly spectacular. In the back of everyone''s mind was the fervent hope to see a win like that of Secretariat in 1973. That was the year the big chestnut put away a field of contenders by a freakish thirty-one lengths. While claiming the Triple Crown trophy and a blanket of carnations in stunning glory, Secretariat also set a track record. Yes, it was always fun to be at the Belmont Stakes for the excitement of the famous race. And, of course, for the party.
Victor was thinking about the one-eighth pole. He knew that when he and Pharoah got there, he could sense how much Pharoah had left--how much strength, how much desire, how much fight to take over the lead of this small herd as if he were living out his fantasy of running wild on a far-off prairie. That desire thrived deep in the colt''s instinctual memory. What would set it loose could be a matter of Victor''s riding, positioning the colt to receive a silent signal sent between rivals. It could be the threat fr.