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 Barnes, 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.”