ELMONT, N.Y. – After three failed attempts at winning the Triple Crown, trainer Bob Baffert could have been excused if he talked about how great an accomplishment American Pharoah’s Triple Crown sweep felt for him personally. Instead, following American Pharoah’s 5 1/2-length tour-de-force victory in Saturday’s $1.5 million Belmont Stakes before a raucous crowd of 90,000 on a glorious spring afternoon on Long Island, the 62-year-old Baffert mentioned just about everybody else. There were his parents, Ellie and Bill, both of whom died within the last three years. “I wish they were alive to see this,” Baffert said. That sentiment was echoed by Baffert’s brother P.A., his sister Penny Braccia, and longtime friend Brad McKinzie, the vice president of Los Alamitos Race Course, who were in the winner’s circle following the race. “I think he wanted this for his mom and dad; they’re the ones who got him started,” McKinzie said. “He started off riding around with his dad in a pickup truck in Nogales, Ariz., going to dirt tracks, and his mother made sure he was a good person.” Bob Baffert talked about his daughter Savannah, remembering how he held her in his arms when Real Quiet got beat a nose by Victory Gallop in the 1998 Belmont Stakes. “Luckily, she doesn’t remember that,” Baffert said. A year earlier, Baffert’s Silver Charm had lost the Triple Crown by three-quarters of a length. Baffert talked about his youngest son, Bode, 10, who until five weeks ago had never seen him win a Kentucky Derby. “This is going to be the moment they’ll never forget,” he said with Bode on his lap at the post-race press conference. “Bode, hopefully he’ll never forget it.” Baffert talked about donating $50,000 to four racing charities, including the Permanently Disabled Jockeys Fund, in memory of Bobby Adair, a Quarter Horse jockey whom Baffert idolized when he rode and who recently died. Baffert talked about Hal Earnhardt and Mike Pegram, two owners who were instrumental in transitioning him from Quarter Horses to Thoroughbreds in the early 1990s. Pegram owned Real Quiet. “They’re responsible for getting me into the Thoroughbred business,” he said. “This is for them.” Baffert talked about the Belmont crowd, announced as 90,000, whose roar reached a crescendo when American Pharoah came into the stretch with a two-length advantage, one he would stretch to 5 1/2 lengths by the wire. “I really enjoyed when he turned for home listening to the crowd get into it; it was so loud,” Baffert said. “Watching him do that, I couldn’t believe I was watching it with all the [previous] disappointment. “I came up here with Silver Charm and Real Quiet thinking I could get it done, and we came so close, and I know the disappointment,” Baffert added. “I was prepared for a loss, but this horse has been so magical this spring … Everything’s gone so smooth with him.” And Baffert talked about the horse, American Pharoah, himself. One whom he had to start over with in January after the colt developed a suspensory injury the week of the Breeders’ Cup, when Baffert had to scratch him from the Juvenile and give him 60 days off. “The Triple Crown is about the horse,” Baffert said. “I really think the name American Pharoah will always be remembered. It’s about him; he’s the one who did it.  We were basically passengers.” And what a ride it’s been.