Got an e-mail last week with the subject line “American Phony.’’ I knew the Triple Crown winner had just lost in the Travers, but phony, I thought, might be a bit much. The writer explained that he was talking about 2015 Beyer Speed Figures, not overall performance. So, it got me thinking: What is the American Pharoah reality as we near the end of the colt’s career? I cringed every time I heard “greatest horse of all time’’ after the Belmont Stakes. Until some other horse breaks the track record in each of the Triple Crown races and wins the Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths while blowing away the world record, I think that debate has been settled. We are no longer capable of just evaluating. Everything has to be hyperbole – the best, the greatest, unbeatable. Why can’t we just enjoy what is in front of us? Let’s agree to put a line through American Pharoah’s first race and evaluate him off his next nine. The colt has nine consecutive triple-digit Beyers – not unprecedented but certainly very unusual. I can’t remember a horse starting a triple-digit run as a 2-year-old and keeping it up to the fall of his 3-year-old season. By my count, the colt has accumulated approximately 20,000 air miles in 2015, without a single home game. That might be unprecedented for a 3-year-old in the air-travel era. Pharoah has won races at seven different tracks in six states, so his form travels. He has won on artificial, in the slop, on fast, and during a monsoon. Excuses have been unnecessary. The reader’s concern was this: Pharoah has never run a giant Beyer figure. It certainly does not make the horse a phony, but it does give me pause. I don’t like to anoint. I like to evaluate. Here are the nine Beyers, starting a year ago in the Del Mar Futurity: 101, 101, 100, 105, 105, 102, 105, 109, 105. Pharoah was terrific at 2 and has gotten a bit faster at 3. We all can get deceived by how horses look when they win. When Pharoah got that 109 in the Haskell Invitational while being eased in the final few hundred yards, I thought that suggested he could go even faster. The reality is that the vast majority of horses run their best in races when they have no pressure. When they are under duress and asked to go all out, they often regress. I thought perhaps Pharoah was the exception to that very basic rule. The Travers proved otherwise. When Pharoah took all the pressure from Frosted, he responded with a great show of heart in the stretch. But horse-racing reality caught up to him in the final yards. He got rubber-legged and got caught by Keen Ice. As my e-mailer pointed out, the Travers marked Pharoah’s fourth 105 Beyer in seven starts this year – solid but not overwhelming. I really thought the slow fractions on a very fast surface made it just about impossible for Pharoah to get more than a 105 in the Belmont. I still believe that. I also have to wonder if that is about the limit. Pharoah’s two toughest races were the Kentucky Derby and Travers. The others were routs that were never in doubt. Pharoah won the Derby and nearly won the Travers on heart. He was not able to convincingly put away a stubborn opponent in Firing Line on the first Saturday in May or dispose of a clinging Frosted on the last Saturday of August. He got a 105 in each race. So, as we head toward the Breeders’ Cup Classic, the big question is: Can American Pharoah get the figure it is going to take to win? Let’s just say for the sake of argument that Honor Code, Liam’s Map, Beholder, and American Pharoah are all in the Classic starting gate. We are talking five recent Beyers of 113 or 114 among those three. Can Pharoah get there? Let’s go back one year for a possible answer. Once he blew up in his final race as a 2-year-old on Dec. 22, 2013, California Chrome was dominant through his six-race winning streak that ended in the 2014 Belmont Stakes. The colt, however, had just three triple-digit Beyers out of his six 3-year-old races heading into the fall, a 108 in the San Felipe, a 107 in the Santa Anita Derby and a 105 in the Preakness. Chrome was going to need the run of his life to have any chance in the Classic. And he got it, earning a career-best 113 Beyer while finishing third, a neck behind Bayern. So, that is a recent precedent that suggests American Pharoah is capable of getting the Beyer necessary to win the Classic as really good 3-year-olds sometimes do improve dramatically in the fall. American Pharoah is no phony, and his historical place is secure. Triple Crown winners are forever. Still, how good American Pharoah really is has yet to be determined.