'Pharoah' Makes Sports Illustrated Cover

This week's cover of Sports Illustrated features American Pharoah, whose victory in the June 6 Belmont Stakes Presented by DraftKings (gr. I) marked the first Triple Crown sweep in 37 years. 

 

The cover image features a shot by SI's deputy picture editor Erick Rasco, in which he managed to use a pole cam to get above a sea of fans that had begun to stand on chairs and benches, smartphones in hand, to capture a truly unique image from the fans' perspective. 

 

Sports Illustrated's managing editor Chris Stone says of the new cover: "The race was, first, about American Pharoah winning the first Triple Crown in 37 years, but it also was about a horse making people care about a sport in a way they haven't in a long time.Not the trainers or the jockeys or stable workers who live and sweat it every day, but the people in that photo with their arms raised, their smartphones poised, in full throat. On an amazing sports weekend, horse racing was back at its center because of the extraordinary horse first, but also because of all the people who found themselves emotionally invested in that story—at least for a little while."

 

Since 2000, only Mine That Bird and Smarty Jones   have made the magazine's cover, in 2009 and 2004, respectively.