The New York Racing Association is keeping no stones unturned to stage American Pharoah along the Saratoga racecourse.
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As trainer Dale Romans walked onto the Monmouth Park track on Saturday, August 1 with his William Hill Haskell Invitational (gr. I) contender Keen Ice, he spotted Triple Crown victor American Pharoah galloping by and commented, “He looks kind of tiresome today”, before letting out a laugh.
American Pharoah has won the triple crown this season while convincingly displaying its own style and was compared with the all-time greatest racing horses.
Here’s how running in a Grade II (Pa. Derby) instead of a Grade I could be sold public relations-wise (and of course it’s easy to spend someone else’s money): Baffert and owner Ahmed Zayat could donate the $200,000 apiece in incentives they will get if American Pharoah runs to the Permanently Disabled Jockeys Fund and the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance (or racing charities of their choice).
“I just didn’t want to let the crowd down, ” Baffert said after his eighth personal Haskell triumph, earning $1.1 million out of the $1.75 million purse. But even though Pat from Sayreville like American Pharoah, he’s not betting on him because the odds are so much in the horse’s favor. By the time he thundered into the homestretch, the crowd was standing and roaring as one.
The Triple Crown champion’s ears were wiggling. But it was Competitive Edge who took the early lead.
Competitive Edge, meanwhile, is 8/1 to win Race No. 12 while Keen Ice is 12/1 and Mr. Jordan is 15/1.
“There are lots of options”, said Baffert, who trains American Pharoah for Zayat Stables.
Of the 11 other Triple Crown horses, 10 returned to racing after making history, and 7 of them won. It’s something that every time we run him or work him, he’s just getting stronger and better.
The victor has suffered from a lack of hierarchy in all his starts this year. Fans roared as American Pharoah first stepped onto the track to the full-throated strains of the Haskell anthem, Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run“, and then watched him float around the racetrack as the others flailed to keep up.
“I didn’t want to go head-to-head, ” Espinoza said. Time will tell whether that’s true before the Breeders’ Cup Classic, but the plentiful energy Pharoah still had in the tank at the Haskell hints that Espinoza can push him if need be-and that his best may be yet to come.
His grand finale is expected to come in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, which is really the ultimate opportunity in America and should provide him with all the opposition and hierarchy he needs to bang out that one Golden Horn-beating performance.
American Pharoah didn’t exert a lot of effort in routing the field in Sunday’s triumph at the Haskell Invitational.
American Pharoah crosses the finish line.
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And American Pharoah is uncomplicated. “As long as American Pharoah is on top of his game … we are just going to play it race by race”. “Me, too. We both were having fun”. The bay colt out of the Yankee Gentleman mare Littleprincessemma has now won eight straight graded stakes races since he lost his first start in a maiden event.
