American Pharoah tries to erase 37 years of Triple Crown futility

ELMONT, N.Y. – A generation has passed since the last Triple Crown winner. Steve Cauthen was 18 when he rode Affirmed to a series sweep in 1978. Now he’s 55, and he’s still the last jockey to win the Triple Crown.

“I remember people saying the Triple Crown was too easy, to make it tougher,” Cauthen recently recalled. “That’s laughable now.”

Indeed, the stretch at Belmont Park contains the failed dreams of many a Triple Crown bid since 1978, most recently last year, when California Chrome could not add the Belmont to victories in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness.

“I always felt it would happen again,” Cauthen said. “You just need the right horse.”

Might American Pharoah be that horse? He is the 14th horse since Affirmed to win both the Derby and Preakness, and on Saturday at Belmont Park, he will start as the heavy favorite in the 147th Belmont Stakes as he attempts to end a 37-year drought and become racing’s 12th Triple Crown winner.

He has not lost a race since his debut last summer at Del Mar, a streak that now numbers six. He was voted the best of his generation last year at age 2, having won the Eclipse Award as champion juvenile male, much like Secretariat, Seattle Slew, and Affirmed, the three Triple Crown winners from the 1970s.

He is the fourth horse to come here with a chance to win the Triple Crown trained by Hall of Famer Bob Baffert, who could not complete the sweep with Silver Charm, Real Quiet, or War Emblem. Back in 1978, Baffert was still more than a decade away from training Thoroughbreds, but he’s a quick study on racing history, and he knows that, in addition to jockey Victor Espinoza, the hopes of many a racing fan will be on the back of American Pharoah on Saturday.

“The New York fans, they came as kids to watch,” Baffert said. “Now they’re bringing their kids to watch. I don’t want to let the fans down. They want to see it happen. Hopefully, maybe, this is the one.”

The Belmont, at 1 1/2 miles, encompasses one lap of spacious Belmont Park. It is the longest of the Triple Crown races, aptly nicknamed “The Test of the Champion.” This will be the first start for American Pharoah at Belmont Park, but he has won races at Del Mar, Santa Anita, Oaklawn Park, Churchill Downs, and Pimlico, so he’s no one-track pony.

He appears to be taking to this track well. American Pharoah had an easy jog on Wednesday, tantamount to dipping his toe in the water, but on Thursday, he had a strong gallop of one lap around the track, at one point moving at better than a two-minute clip, or 15 seconds per furlong, much in the same way he trained at Santa Anita this year before embarking on his Derby preps and then the Triple Crown.

“He’s got a beautiful stride,” Baffert said. “He does it effortlessly.”

American Pharoah has one quirk: occasionally being startled by noise. So, he wears earplugs. But for a 3-year-old colt with sharp speed, he is surprisingly cooperative, both on the track and off.

“He is the sweetest horse of this caliber I’ve ever been around,” Baffert said. “This horse is something special. He’s fast, he gets out of trouble, and he sits.”

Espinoza, who is 6 for 6 on American Pharoah, said: “That’s what I like about him. He’s very kind. He doesn’t get rank or anything.”

That will be part of the challenge for American Pharoah on Saturday. The Belmont comes at the end of an ambitious campaign – five races in 12 weeks, the last three in five weeks, all following an accelerated training schedule earlier this year to get him back to the races in time for two preps prior to the Kentucky Derby. If he goes too fast too soon, or if the cumulative effect of that activity catches up to him, the final quarter-mile could be his undoing. The Triple Crown series is so demanding that American Pharoah is the only horse competing in all three races this year.

“We’ll see,” Baffert said. “He’s the best horse so far. He’ll have to dig it out.”

The closest anyone has come to American Pharoah was at the Derby, when he won by one length. All his other wins this year have been by six lengths or more. It’s thought-provoking to hear Baffert say that American Pharoah “didn’t bring his ‘A’ game” at the Derby, because it’s probably true, and yet he still won America’s most famous race and beat 17 rivals.

Still, if nothing else has been learned over the previous 36 years, it’s that the Triple Crown is very, very difficult to sweep. And, so, seven challengers will try to stop American Pharoah in the Belmont, five of whom – Frammento, Frosted, Keen Ice, Materiality, and Mubtaahij – futilely chased him at the Derby and then skipped the Preakness to point for this.

Mubtaahij was timed by Daily Racing Form’s Mike Welsch working three furlongs in 37.45 seconds Thursday.

Todd Pletcher, a two-time Belmont winner, sends out both Materiality and Madefromlucky, the only horse in the field who did not run in the Derby or the Preakness. In a race worth $1.5 million, with $800,000 to the winner, Pletcher would “love to spoil the party.”

“I’d love to win the Belmont every year, and that would be the case if there is a Triple Crown at stake or not,” he said.

The other entrant is Tale of Verve, who finished a distant second to American Pharoah in the Preakness.

Post time for the Belmont is 6:50 p.m. Eastern. It will be shown live on NBC during a telecast that begins at 4:30. There is coverage of the undercard from 2:30-4:30 on NBCSN.

The Belmont is the 11th race on a sensational 13-race card that begins at 11:35 a.m. and includes five other Grade 1 races. Highlights include Tonalist, last year’s Belmont winner, taking on Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Bayern in the Metropolitan Handicap, and last year’s champion 3-year-old filly, Untapable, running in the Ogden Phipps.

As spectacular as the card is, the focal point unquestionably is American Pharoah’s quest for a Triple Crown.

What makes it such compelling drama for the general public, according to Penny Chenery, who owned Secretariat, is “the idea of something that is out of reach.”

“If we had a Triple Crown winner every year,” she said, “they wouldn’t look up.”