It has been a long time since horse players could proclaim that all is right in the world and actually mean it. The horses are already running at Del Mar, the track that Bing Crosby built where the turf meets the surf in Southern California. Saratoga Race Course kicked off its 147th summer renewal on Friday.
Best of all, for the first time in 37 years, there is a Triple Crown champion in our midst. His name, of course, is American Pharoah, and, if the racing gods remain kind, he is scheduled to race for the first time since his triumphant Belmont Stakes on Aug. 2 in the Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park on the Jersey Shore.
American Pharoah turned in yet another impressive workout early Thursday at Del Mar in preparation for his return, breezing 6 furlongs in 1:11.0. It was American Pharoah's second timed workout in six days and, in a sign that the colt is raring to go, his Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert said he would breeze him again on Tuesday before shipping east.
"I think he's getting faster," Baffert said. "He gives me goosebumps."
American Pharoah is also giving his trainer, as well as racing executives across the country, high levels of anxiety. Moments after he crossed the finish line at Belmont Park, Baffert vowed that he would watch the prized chestnut colt closely and do everything in his power to prevent the Triple Crown champion from getting beat.
That is easier said than done. Secretariat, Seattle Slew and Affirmed, the last three Triple Crown champions, won only five of their combined 11 races as 3-year-olds after the Belmont.
Escalating the stakes is the fact that American Pharoah's stallion rights had been sold to Coolmore, an Ireland-based international racing and breeding operation, long before the Triple Crown races were run. It is no secret that Coolmore wants the colt to retire immediately to begin his career at Ashford Stud in Versailles, Kentucky, for a fee as high as $150,000 per mating.
Do the math: Dates with 200 mares in American Pharoah's first year will add up to $30 million, or more than twice what Coolmore paid for the stallion rights, according to two people familiar with the deal.
The colt's owner, Ahmed Zayat, however, has the right to race American Pharoah through the end of the year and says he want to share him with fans of the sport. Keeping American Pharoah on the racetrack also allows him to cash more win checks and collect more appearance fees to offset the fact that he left money on the table by selling the stallion rights early.
For all interested parties, the Haskell is the logical and most lucrative race for American Pharoah to make his return. Besides offering a $1 million purse, the Haskell gives $25,000 to the owner and the trainer of the winner of each Triple Crown race. Zayat and Baffert swept the series and are each guaranteed $75,000.
There is also very little risk that American Pharoah will lose. The Haskell should be renamed the Bob Baffert Invitational because his horses have appeared in it 11 times, won 7, finished second 3 times and third once. The chances of American Pharoah getting beat are diminished even further because only five challengers have signed on so far, and the best of them, Competitive Edge, is a sprinter stretching out to the mile-and-an-eighth distance for the first time.
The ultimate goal for American Pharoah is the $5 million Breeders' Cup Classic on Oct. 31 at Keeneland in Lexington, Ky. But deciding on the best path to get him there is tricky.
Baffert insists on taking the colt's remaining campaign one day at a time, but Zayat is publicly entertaining all possibilities: Saratoga's Travers Stakes, Del Mar's Pacific Classic and Parx's Pennsylvania Derby. One gets the feeling that if it were up to him, he would himself drive American Pharoah up the New Jersey Turnpike six days after the Haskell to take on the nation's best 3-year-old trotters in the Hambletonian at the Meadowlands.
But what if all is really, really right with the world and American Pharoah keeps kicking down his barn? And the racing gods remain kind? How about the Haskell, the Travers, the Pennsylvania Derby and then the Classic?
We can dream.
Sports on 07/26/2015