American Pharoah One Win From Triple Crown
Ahmed Zayat’s horse dominated Saturday’s Preakness Stakes. Can the duo make history?
May 18, 2015
Ahmed Zayat hugs Bob Baffert after American Pharoah won the Preakness Stakes, May 16, 2015. (Rob Carr/Getty Images)
On Saturday, amid a thunderstorm, American Pharoah won the 140th running of the Preakness Stakes at Baltimore’s Pimlico Race Course by seven lengths. The horse, which is owned by Ahmed Zayat, an Egyptian Jew who lives in New Jersey, was the odds-on favorite after having won the Kentucky Derby just two weeks ago.
“I always told everybody American Pharoah would show up today,” Zayat said in the winner’s circle. “Indeed he did. He is the real deal.”
Expectations will now reach a fever pitch for the three-year-old bay colt to become the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978.
But recent history has not been kind. American Pharoah is actually the fourteenth horse in the last 36 years to have won the first two races (Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes) of the Triple Crown. All 14 failed to win the Belmont Stakes, including California Chrome last year (finished fourth at Belmont). The New York Times‘ Joe Drape pondered whether American Pharoah and jockey Victor Espinoza could complete “one of the most difficult feats in sports:”
My answer is that I haven’t a clue, and the times I thought I did, I watched my horse lose by a bob (Real Quiet in 1998), get run down in a stretch (Smarty Jones in 2004) or be compromised by a questionable ride, as California Chrome did last year. Just as most horse owners try to abide by the golden rule of always accepting a better-than-fair price when it’s offered for a colt or filly, most horseplayers try, but mostly fail, to honor their own version: that nobody knows nothing.
American Pharoah wins the 140th running of the Preakness Stakes:
Jonathan Zalman is a writer and teacher based in Brooklyn.
