In American Pharoah, racing finds a champion

In November 1998, a horse named Time for a Prize untangled himself from a three-horse accident at Golden Gate Fields and bolted off the track and into the real world. He was finally cornered after heading the wrong way up an off-ramp of Interstate 580.

Thoroughbred racing jumped the rails in a big way last Saturday with the triumph of American Pharoah in the Belmont Stakes. Suddenly, after 37 years of wondering which horse would be next, or if there ever would be another, the one thing everyone knew about horse racing was made flesh and blood once again.

The Triple Crown.

Sportswriters who rarely lift a finger in coverage of a horse race were moved to wax poetic. Anyone with a microphone and a handy camera felt obligated to make the moment their own. As for the pervasive world of social media, it was as if, in the instant that American Pharoah and Victor Espinoza hit the wire 5 1/2 lengths in front of Frosted, cute cats and Caitlyn Jenner were nothing more than yesterday’s news.

“American Pharoah is huge inspiration,” tweeted Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren.

“Congrats to American Pharoah, misspelling and all,” tweeted CNN’s Jake Tapper.

“BOOM!” tweeted talk-show host Piers Morgan with typical British reserve.

“#AmericanPharoah #TripleCrown YES!!! So amazing!!!!!” tweeted swimsuit model Kate Upton, adding five party popper emoticons.

American Pharoah and Upton now share the distinction of occupying a Sports Illustrated cover (although he wore considerably more), but neither can boast Espinoza’s experience of racing Jimmy Fallon through the halls of the NBC studio in midtown Manhattan, the Monday after the Belmont aboard mini motorcycles.

For those who like their racing humor droll, there was Sunday’s “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,” which led with a shot of American Pharoah in the opening credits and included a salute “to all the horses who didn’t win the Triple Crown this week,” accompanied by photos of Seattle Slew, Barbaro, Mine That Bird, Thunder Gulch, and Animal Kingdom, among others, and tagged with names like White Guilt, Oedipal Steve, Bumblebee’s Climax, and Why Did Daddy Leave.

“Congratulations on being horses,” the salute concluded. “To us, you’re all winners.”

Of course, to the general sports public, the only other horse who comes to mind in terms of the Triple Crown is Secretariat. It was unfortunate, therefore, that someone at the Wall Street Journal felt compelled to distribute the side-by-side videos of the Belmont victories of American Pharoah and Secretariat, as if that is the only standard by which the 12th and most recent Triple Crown winner can be measured.

This is tantamount to comparing the opening paragraph of “Fifty Shades of Grey” (“Damn my hair – it just won’t behave.”) with the last page of “The Great Gatsby.” No horse has ever won a Belmont Stakes like Secretariat and never will, unless they make the stretch downhill.

Better American Pharoah’s triumph in New York be compared with the front-running, seven-length masterpiece of Riva Ridge in 1972, accomplished in similar time, or even the equally dominating wire-to-wire performance of Seattle Slew over a muddy course in 1977. For those who insist upon conflating eras, American Pharoah’s Belmont time of 2:26.65 would have put him in the photo with Affirmed and Alydar and would have made a race of it with the easy winners A.P. Indy, Risen Star, and Point Given. For what that’s worth.

Final times and comparisons are meaningless, though, when confronted with a moment of transcendent sports history. There was a reason no 3-year-old had won the Triple Crown since Affirmed in 1978, and that was because there had been no 3-year-old like Affirmed since then.

American Pharoah has filled that tall order, racing through the unique challenges presented by each of the three classic races with grace and style: the Kentucky Derby with its huge field, the Preakness just two weeks later, and the Belmont’s once-around 1 1/2 miles on sandy loam. He’ll never need to do any of those things again.

To be among the 90,000 or so in the house at Belmont Park last Saturday was an incomparable privilege, even though I had been there several times before with hopes raised and then cruelly dashed by the harsh realities of a young horse trying to win the Triple Crown. Those who had faith that American Pharoah was “The One” from the beginning deserve a high five for cutting through the dense clutter of historic undergrowth to see him for what he is – a special animal among the many.

“To us, you’re all winners.”

No one had a better, or worse, view of the Belmont than Donna Barton Brothers, the ultimate sideline reporter for the NBC telecast, who is always the first reporter to push a microphone into the face of a winning rider after a big race.

Astride her pony, Brothers was positioned on the clubhouse turn and close witness to the controlled burn of American Pharoah leading his field through the opening stages of the race. As they disappeared onto the backstretch and into the distance, Brothers followed the call of Larry Collmus through her earpiece as the incredible noise from the stands welled in the background.

“It was pretty insane, what I was hearing,” Brothers said. “And it sounded as if Frosted was trying to make a race of it. But then it was over.

“There was a Latino family standing behind me on the outside fence,” she said. “A mother and father and three kids, I’d say ages 7 to 12. When the horses crossed the wire and started heading back towards us on the turn, they were screaming at me, ‘Did he win? Did he win?’ ”

Yes, she shouted to them. Yes, he did.

“They immediately started to scream and jump up and down, and the mother was crying,” Brothers said. “If that’s how my little crowd of just five people reacted, I can only imagine how the rest of the place was like.”

Rest assured, it was that way everywhere, and for a day, horse racing was king.