After American Pharoah was defeated in the Travers Stakes last Saturday, owner Ahmed Zayat said that his “gut feeling right now, without being outspoken, is to retire him.”

Others agreed: “The loss after eight straight brilliant victories was a tough one,” wrote the Associated Press, calling the Travers outcome an “indication that the time to retire the horse is sooner rather than later.”

American Pharoah was in a very uncomfortable position during the Travers, pressured from the outside a long way down the backstretch and all the way around the final turn. It was a scenario the Triple Crown winner had never faced. If he wasn’t a sensational racehorse, he would have collapsed at the quarter pole. Instead, he kept trying to the wire, even though it was obvious he was running on fumes.

So now Victor Espinoza is going to be a contestant on “Dancing With the Stars.” Didn’t see that one coming, but no one should be surprised. Since winning the Belmont Stakes aboard American Pharoah in June, Espinoza has flashed his Triple Crown grin far and wide – red carpets, awards shows, business confabs, charity flings, two appearances on “The Tonight Show” with Jimmy Fallon, both times in jockey drag.

You’ve got to hand it to the folks at Saratoga. Year after year, they hustle the best 3-year-olds in the country to run a damp, testing mile and a quarter in front of a rollicking house packed to the rafters with a sweltering congregation of seasonal pilgrims.

The incentives are mixed. There’s a chance to join a list of legends, many of them recorded on parchment or engraved in stone. Your colors will be painted on a rowboat. The winner could be hailed as another Native Dancer, Gallant Man, or Sword Dancer. As impressive as Damascus, Arts and Letters, or Honest Pleasure.

The “official” sign was barely up on American Pharoah’s Triple Crown victory when pundits began saying that his next mission was to complete an unprecedented “Grand Slam” of the three classics and then the Breeders’ Cup Classic at season’s end. In addition to having a shopworn name swiped from half a dozen other sports, this proposed Grand Slam is a bit of a bogus proposition: It is unprecedented because it did not exist as a possibility until this year. The Classic was first run in 1984, six years after the last Triple Crown winner before American Pharoah.

With Beholder in the hands of a master trainer, it was reasonable to assume that she was going to run right to her best Beyer Speed Figures in the Pacific Classic, not the middling numbers she had been getting when barely trying in easy wins against overmatched females. Well, a 114 Beyer was way better than anything I envisioned.

It seems sacrilegious, what with American Pharoah both on the overnight for the Travers and in the air heading eastward as this is typed. It has become an unwritten rule among racing writers that whenever the Triple Crown winner goes forth, any story worth its keystrokes must begin and end with Pharoah’s every twitch and nicker, otherwise it will be read by exactly no one.

In a guest commentary published last week in the San Diego Union-Tribune, owner, breeder, and Del Mar Thoroughbred director Jon Kelly offered up praise for the steps taken by California racing to strengthen the detection of illegal substances.

At one time, Kelly owned KCRA-TV in Sacramento and turned it into an NBC network affiliate. And while no one really can remember when there was no cable TV, someone had to get it rolling, and Kelly was one of the pioneers.

There is no clinical proof that a Thoroughbred racehorse can suffer from an inferiority complex. But if ever there was a candidate, his name is Bayern.

Yes, Bayern, the romping hero just last year of the Woody Stephens, the Haskell Invitational, and the Pennsylvania Derby. The controversial yet thoroughly brave winner of the 2014 Breeders’ Cup Classic. Twice the conqueror of 2014 Horse of the Year California Chrome and the undisputed kingpin of the Bob Baffert stable as the 2015 season commenced.

Everyone in racing thinks the world of American Pharoah, and why wouldn’t they? Even if he never races again, he will have been a champion at 2 and 3, a Horse of the Year and Hall of Famer, and, of course, the first winner of the American Triple Crown in 37 years. It is almost impossible to direct too many superlatives his way. Almost.