American Pharoah
American Pharoah is a Thoroughbred racehorse who won the American Triple Crown and the Breeders' Cup Classic in 2015. He was the 12th Triple Crown winner in history, and in winning all four races, became the first horse to win the modern Grand Slam of Thoroughbred racing. He won the 2015 Eclipse Award for Horse of the Year and 2015 Champion three-year-old. In 2021 he was inducted into the American Racing Hall of Fame. He was bred and owned throughout his racing career by Ahmed Zayat of Zayat Stables, trained by Bob Baffert, and ridden in most of his races by Victor Espinoza.
After finishing fifth in his track debut as a two-year-old, American Pharoah won his next two races, the Grade I Del Mar Futurity and FrontRunner Stakes, each by several lengths. An injury kept him out of the Breeders' Cup Juvenile, but the strength of his two wins nonetheless resulted in his being voted American Champion Two-Year-Old Male Horse at the 2014 Eclipse Awards. Before the 2015 season began, Zayat had sold breeding rights to the colt to the Ashford Stud, a division of Ireland's Coolmore Stud. He retained control over the colt and his racing career, as well as an undisclosed dividend on stud fees.
American Pharoah began his 2015 campaign with wins in the Rebel Stakes and Arkansas Derby and went on to win the 2015 Kentucky Derby and 2015 Preakness Stakes. He won the Triple Crown in a wire-to-wire victory at the 2015 Belmont Stakes, becoming the first American Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978 and the 12th in history. His winning time was the second-fastest for a Triple Crown winner. He next shipped to Monmouth Park and easily won the Haskell Invitational on August 2. Three weeks later, he finished a close second in a hard-fought Travers Stakes at Saratoga Race Course on August 29, 2015, snapping a winning streak of eight races. After a layoff of two months, he shipped to Keeneland for the 2015 Breeders' Cup and ran in the Breeders' Cup Classic, where he challenged older horses for the first time and won by lengths, breaking the track record.
At the conclusion of his 2015 racing year, American Pharoah was retired to stud, per the agreement between Zayat and Ashford. He stands at stud at Ashford Stud in Kentucky.
Background
American Pharoah is a bay stallion with a faint star on his forehead and no other white markings. He is from the second crop of foals sired by the Nile, who finished second in the 2009 Kentucky Derby. The stallion's first crop included Holy Bull Stakes winner Cairo Prince, and Social Inclusion, who finished third in the 2014 Preakness Stakes. American Pharoah's dam, Littleprincessemma, was purchased by Zayat in 2007 for $250,000. She raced but did not win either of her two starts in 2008. American Pharoah was her second foal, following allowance race winner Xixixi. Since his birth, she had produced two more full siblings to American Pharoah: a filly born in 2014, and a colt, foaled in 2015 after she sold—in foal to the Nile—in November 2014 for $2.1 million.American Pharoah was bred in Kentucky by his owner, Ahmed Zayat, CEO of Zayat Stables, LLC, and was born at 11 p.m. on Groundhog Day, February 2, 2012, at Tom VanMeter's Stockplace Farm in Lexington, Kentucky. When he was a few days old, he and Littleprincessemma went to nearby Pretty Run Farm, also owned by VanMeter, where they remained for a few months. Later, the mare and foal were moved to Vinery, another Lexington farm where the Nile was stabled. There, American Pharoah was weaned at five months of age, and stood out from the other weanlings due to his conformation and good temperament.
In January 2013 as a yearling, he went to Taylor Made Farm near Nicholasville, Kentucky, and began to be prepared for possible sale. In August 2013, American Pharoah was consigned by the Taylor Made Sales Agency to the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Yearling sale. A few weeks before the auction, American Pharoah bumped his leg and had a small lump that was visible to potential buyers at the sale, which may have discouraged bidders. He was officially purchased for the posted minimum of $300,000 by Ingordo Bloodstock, acting as an agent for Zayat, who in effect bought back his own horse. Zayat had pledged that he would not sell the promising but untested colt for less than $1 million. Zayat similarly bought back the Nile, American Pharoah's sire, for $290,000 in a 2007 yearling auction.
"We felt that he had brilliance in him", said Zayat of American Pharoah, "his demeanor, his aura, his conformation, the way he moved." Following the auction, the horse first went to Florida and was started under saddle at the McKathan Brothers Training Center near Citra, where trainer J.B. McKathan said, "He just did everything right." Once he was ready to begin race conditioning, he went into training with Hall of Fame inductee Bob Baffert in the spring of 2014.
He was described in 2014 as a ridgling, rather than a colt, meaning that he had an undescended testicle. The 2013 catalogue for his yearling Fasig-Tipton sale listed him as a "colt", and he was described that way again in 2015. Zayat maintained the "ridgling" designation was an error: "he was always a colt."
In 2015, Baffert noted American Pharoah's smooth and distinctively long stride: "I've never had a horse that moves or travels over the ground like he does." The horse also had a short tail during his two- and three-year-old seasons—it was apparently chewed off by another horse. It is theorized that Mr. Z, a fellow competitor and Zayat-bred colt, may have been the culprit; the pair were kept together in Florida as younger horses. Trainer Baffert had a more colorful theory: "I think he was in the pasture one day and there was a mountain lion chasing him—that was the closest he could get ..."
American Pharoah's gentle demeanor is also distinctive, in that he appears fond of people and, particularly for a young racehorse, surprisingly calm around them. As Baffert explained, "Horses of his caliber are not that nice and sweet. They're just sort of tough. If I brought Bayern out here, you can't get near him, he's too aggressive. 's just so different than any horse I've ever had." He was not always so calm, described initially as "a little bit of a headcase", but Baffert explained that after his anxiety-ridden first race, people worked with him, schooling him in the track paddock for about two weeks, when "all the sudden he got really sweet and really mellow." That said, United States Vice President Mike Pence alleged that American Pharoah had bit him in 2018. However, a manager for American Pharoah's breeding company denied the allegation.
Name
American Pharoah's name is inspired by that of his sire, the Nile, and his dam's sire, Yankee Gentleman. The horse's name also acknowledges Zayat's own Egyptian-American background. The misspelling of "Pharaoh" is permanent, but inadvertent. Zayat originally claimed that the spelling was the result of an error by the Jockey Club, but the organization's president stated, "The name request for the 2012 colt American Pharoah was submitted electronically on January 25, 2014, through the Jockey Club's interactive registration site. Since the name met all of the criteria for naming and was available, it was granted exactly as it was spelled on the digital name application." Zayat later retracted his statement.Zayat's wife, Joanne, offered another explanation for the name's origins to a local news reporter just before the Preakness. Zayat's son, Justin, ran a contest on social media in which fans could submit names for the horse. The winning entry had "Pharaoh" misspelled, she said. "Justin cut and pasted the name from email, and sent it to the Jockey Club." Marsha Baumgartner of Barnett, Missouri, who submitted the winning entry, told The New York Times, "I don't want to assign blame", but "I looked up the spelling before I entered." Nonetheless, Baumgartner minimized the controversy, stating, "Horses can't spell, anyway." Ultimately, Justin Zayat accepted responsibility for the error, stating, "I didn't happen to realize at the time that it was misspelled wrong ... Most English teachers in the world now are unhappy with me, but I'll live with that."
Due to the winning record of American Pharoah, the Jockey Club has now reserved both spellings so another horse cannot be similarly named. The Triple Crown blanket awarded to American Pharoah after his Belmont win inadvertently used the correct spelling of "pharaoh", and hence misspelled his name.
Racing career
2014: two-year-old season
American Pharoah made his track debut in a maiden race over six and a half furlongs on the Polytrack surface at Del Mar Racetrack on August 9. Ridden by Martin Garcia, he started as the 7–5 favorite against eight opponents. He became unsettled before the race and, after running in second place until the stretch, faded to finish fifth behind Om, Iron Fist, One Lucky Dane, and Calculator, more than nine lengths behind the winner. He ran in a blinker hood, which appeared to unnerve him, as did the commotion in the saddling paddock. Baffert addressed his anxiety issues by removing the hood and stuffing cotton in the horse's ears for subsequent races.Despite his defeat, American Pharoah was moved up to Grade I class for the Del Mar Futurity over seven furlongs on September 3. He was ridden by Victor Espinoza for the first time and started as the 3.2–1 second favorite behind Best Pal Stakes winner Skyway, with Calculator and Iron Fist also in the field. American Pharoah took the lead from the start and went clear in the straight to win by four and three quarter lengths from Calculator, with a gap of more than eight lengths back to Iron Fist in third. Commenting on the colt's improvement, Baffert said, "We took the blinkers off, put cotton in his ears and schooled him a lot. He trained well, we decided he was ready and we put him in there. Today, he behaved himself and showed what he could do. He did what we thought he'd do the first time."
On September 27, American Pharoah was made the 1–2 favorite for the Grade I FrontRunner Stakes over furlongs at Santa Anita Park. As in his previous race, he was immediately sent to the front by Espinoza and stayed there, pulling away from his rivals in the straight to win by three and a quarter lengths over Calculator, with Texas Red a length and a half away in third. After the race, Espinoza explained how the colt moved: "All the way he was on a high cruising speed. He has such a long stride. He moves really nice and is light on his feet." Baffert said, "I can't believe his demeanor, how he has changed since his first out. He's so professional. He's really mentally there."
American Pharoah was scheduled to run in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile at Santa Anita on November 1 but was scratched from the race after sustaining a "deep bruise" to his left front foot in a workout on October 27. After this injury, he was fitted with a special horseshoe. His farrier, Wes Champagne, placed a thin sheet of aluminum alloy over a regular racing horseshoe and cut it to match the dimensions of the shoe, leaving the front two-thirds of the hoof sole exposed, but creating a solid plate across the back that covered part of American Pharoah's heels and part of his frog. Champagne varied the design slightly depending on the tracks and races American Pharoah would run, but used the same basic concept throughout the Triple Crown series.
Even though he did not run in the Breeders' Cup, for the 2014 Eclipse Awards, American Pharoah was voted American Champion Two-Year-Old Male Horse, beating Breeders' Cup Juvenile winner Texas Red by 126 votes to 111.