American Pharoah: Up to you in New York
Like the undertaker Bonasera regarding America in the opening scene of “The Godfather,” I believed in Smarty Jones on that June Saturday in New York, convinced that I wouldn’t get fooled again.
Moral: When you live and die with horses, expect to die a lot.
Now, it’s American Pharoah stirring up the blood. Here’s another chance for a horse to become — all together now, class — the first Triple Crown winner in 37 years.
By early this evening, when the 147th Belmont Stakes is in the books, Hot Springs, and other places where the sport matters, will be rocking like Times Square on V. E. Day — or not.
For the second year in a row, a Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner hopes to join horse racing’s Skull and Bones, its elite society. Twelve prospective members since Affirmed, the 11th and last in the club, stumbled over their initiation rites in the Belmont ( a 13th, I’ll Have Another in 2012, never got to the gate). One strike in this league, and you’re out.
But that’s horse racing for you, its peaks and valleys like those on the New York Stock Exchange, where someone in the Belmont Stakes usually rings the bell to begin trading one day during race week.
After watching California Chrome go down in person last year, I’ve chosen to watch the race at Oaklawn Park, looking for someone to hug ( like Jim Valvano after N. C. State beat Houston) in the event American Pharoah prevails. It’s not exactly true that AP made his reputation at Oaklawn but dead- on accurate that he furthered his education at the local horseyard. In two local preps four weeks apart, an already brilliant colt acquired the seasoning with which he won the first two legs of the Triple Crown.
The Rebel Stakes March 14, the colt’s only non- Grade 1 victory and after almost six months off, showcased his front- running speed under playground conditions — frolicking in the mud with a loose shoe. Winning the April 11 Arkansas Derby from off the pace confirmed that here was something other than a “need- the- lead” type, kindly rating down the backstretch for a patient jockey.
You know the rest. Wide on both turns at Churchill Downs, American Pharoah ran down Firing Line and won the Kentucky Derby by one length, Victor Espinoza repeatedly going to the whip he hadn’t needed at Oaklawn. Turned loose early in the Preakness two weeks later, AP galloped home by seven lengths in the slop at Pimlico.
And now on to New York to defend his doctoral thesis in the Test of the Champion at Belmont Park, horse racing’s equivalent of playing Carnegie Hall.
Most tracks, Oaklawn included, are mile ovals. Belmont is a mile and a half in circumference, the backstretch extended like the Brooklyn Bridge. The track’s quirky dimensions sometimes make the Belmont Stakes a jockeys’ race, a test of nerves between skilled riders fearful of reacting too soon or too late. Some rapped Stewart Elliott for a premature move on Smarty Jones in 2004. Chris McCarron, a Hall of Famer, might have waited too long with Alysheba in 1987.
American Pharoah has never raced at Belmont and did not arrive in New York until this past Tuesday. Worry not, says Frank Mirahmadi, Oaklawn’s announcer and one of the colt’s biggest fans. The really good ones, as the saying goes, “have seen the track.” Frank expects an “Arkansas Derbylike performance” from AP with a winning margin of 14 3/ 4 lengths. Though he’s a California horse, some 90,000 Belmont fans will take him to their heart — but dump him in the proverbial New York minute if he loses.
Harry King, a Little Rock sports columnist, came away from the Arkansas Derby convinced that, in American Pharoah, he had seen the Kentucky Derby winner. He’s still a believer. About the Belmont, “I don’t know why he doesn’t win
the race. I can’t come up with a reason for him to lose.”
I share the same opinion, that American Pharoah towers over his rivals and that if one beats him today it will need wings. So, why don’t I feel more confident? Something about living and dying with horses on June Saturdays, I guess. Some parting thoughts: Kyle Clem, a Hot Springs friend who follows the horses, points out that the youngest living person to place a legal bet ( then 18 or 21) on the last Belmont Stakes to produce a Triple Crown winner is 55 or 58.
I have two American Pharoah trading cards on my desk at work and just hope that I’m not jinxing the no- hitter in progress.
How long ago was 1978? Bill Cosby and O. J. Simpson were American icons.
Sadly, Affirmed isn’t remembered for much other than being the last Triple Crown winner. It says here that he’s carried that burden long enough. Hopefully, American Pharoah today gets to turn his tassel and toss his cap at graduation — and Oaklawn can hang out a sign reading “a Triple Crown winner slept here.”