Putting Pharoah’s Triple Crown Sweep into Words

The Belmont Park crowd reacts on June 6 to witnessing American Pharoah's Belmont Stakes win to become the first Triple Crown winner in 37 years. (Photo by Eclipse Sportswire)
Trying to put into words the experience of watching a Triple Crown sweep become reality might be a task only slightly less imposing than the feat itself.
There’s no single word that applies. You could empty the pages of a thesaurus and still have descriptive words to ponder and apply to such a rare and spectacular accomplishment.
What makes detailing it so challenging, even for the most skilled of writers, is that it’s such an extraordinary moment that there’s no single emotion that stays in place for very long. Your emotions change with the frequency of a traffic light, especially if American Pharoah’s sweep was not the first you have witnessed.
Having savored the experience on four occasions, starting with the 1973 afternoon when Secretariat ended a 25-year drought in mind-boggling fashion, the hours after American Pharoah crossed the finish line in the Belmont Stakes were surreal to say the very least.
So many different emotions came together and formed an intoxicating experience that promises to be as exhilarating years from now, when people fondly reflect back on it, as it was on the grand afternoon of June 6, 2015.
AMERICAN PHAROAH RETURNED A TRIPLE CROWN WINNER

Photo by Eclipse Sportswire
Finding a starting point for this tale offers numerous options.
Perhaps it is best to reflect on the feeling of nostalgia, and then melancholy when it sinks in, that 37 years have indeed flown by since the sport last celebrated a Triple Crown winner. To hear someone mention 37 years is one thing. To live through it and have your mind flash back over all those years is something altogether different.
For me, watching American Pharoah’s victory in the “Test of the Champion” from the press box at Belmont Park reminded me, quite powerfully, that 37 very long and yet extremely quick years had indeed passed since that June 10, 1978 afternoon, when from my seat in the third floor of Belmont Park’s grandstand I watched Affirmed once again get the better of Alydar to become the 11th Triple Crown champion.
It dawned on me that I had just completed a circle of life.
AFFIRMED DEFEATING ALYDAR IN BELMONT STAKES

Photo by Horsephotos.com
On that June afternoon in 1978, I was just weeks removed from my college graduation. I had a part-time job at a department store near my home in Stamford, Conn. and longed to embark on a career in newspaper journalism.
Now, in 2015, I can say I have been fortunate enough to enjoy a ride in a newspaper industry that’s in its 37th year and has shaped me in so many ways.
You think about being a bright-eyed, skinny, 21-year-old daydreamer, when you were still some seven years away from meeting your wife. Then you realize in the staggering amount of time it took for one Triple Crown winner to come around and for another to follow, that you have you have spent nearly 29 years married to a loving and beautiful woman and that the three sons we raised together have grown into fine young men who are building happy lives on their own.
The youngest of them completed the circle of life by mirroring his dad as he graduated college less than a month before a Triple Crown sweep.
You sense that time has flashed by in the mere blink of an eye, and you feel numb. Your throat turns dry when you realize that if it takes another 37 years for Triple Crown winner No. 13 to roll around, you most likely will be watching it from the heavens above. Without being fatalistic, my own chances of living to be 95 can be considered quite slim.
Then, in another instant, you resiliently snap back, understanding that what may very well seem quick has actually spanned an incredibly long period of time. You look forward to the future and wonder if an encore of the back-to-back crowns in 1977 and 1978 is in the works for the same time, same place next year.
But then you remember all the near-misses, 13 of them in 37 years, and marvel at how great some of those baker’s dozen were and how not one of them could stride to the finish line as majestically as American Pharoah did.
If you believed American Pharoah was the one brilliant enough to defy the odds and the supposed limitations of the modern-day Thoroughbred, you then felt a grand sense of satisfaction for daring to believe in a horse that was facing a task some believed to be impossible in this era.
After 37 years of failures, it’s understandable how doubt became so be prevalent. Yet seeing it happen all over again brought back, for a while, the euphoria attached to the glory days of the 1970s when Triple Crown winners and bids by a string of legendary champions became the norm.
You chuckle to remember that in 1979 when Spectacular Bid was an overwhelming favorite to notch a third straight sweep, there was actually conjecture that the accomplishment had become way too easy.
Easy. Imagine that.
You come to the understanding that the 1970s were an aberration in terms of the great champions that came around so frequently, and that they should be viewed as a highly special era and not framed as an example of what to expect from every decade. You are reminded of the skepticism that surrounded a larger-than-life horse in Secretariat when he attempted to end a 25-year Triple Crown drought, and then, thanks to American Pharoah, take comfort in knowing the task is extremely difficult but not impossible.
SECRETARIAT CLOSING OUT TRIPLE CROWN IN 1973 BELMONT

Photo by Horsephotos.com
And then you look around, absorb the joy a Triple Crown generates and you can’t help but smile and join in the celebration.
You recall the loud, nearly deafening roar during the stretch run when it became certain that the Triple Crown clock would finally strike 12. You close your eyes for an instant, and fresh in your mind is a new scene of Triple Crown euphoria. You see 90,000 people in unison jumping up and down, emphatically waving their hands and shouting their lungs out, as American Pharoah triumphantly pulled away in the stretch and galloped into the history books.
There was a hysteria that continued after the horses crossed the finish line, and when it slowly started to abate, the hero of the moment returned to begin his parade to the winner’s circle and the fans once erupted in a boisterous celebration.
Hours later, after night set in and a post-race concert concluded, people were still smiling and reveling in the knowledge that they were part of a magical moment no one had experienced in some 37 years.
If there was something new in witnessing my fourth Triple Crown, it came from looking down and watching from Belmont’s press box rather than a grandstand seat and having to put into words everything that had just unfolded.
In some ways that was simple. The 2015 Belmont Stakes was one of those unique sporting events that writes its own story.
The storyline was that some 90,000 people came to Belmont Park and millions more across the country watched on television screens, laptops and smart phones expecting to see greatness. After so many teases in the last three-plus decades, they were finally treated to it.
It was a tale some 37 years in the making and the smiles and, yes, cheers in the press box illustrated some of the satisfaction rolled into telling it.
A PHAROAH TALE ENDING

Some might be taken aback to hear about displays of emotion in such a setting, but to watch an event like American Pharoah’s victory without cracking at least a smile raises a question about the heart and soul of a person.
People were not cheering because of some form of loyalty to Ahmed Zayat, Bob Baffert or Victor Espinoza that would render them blind to blemishes. They cheered for the sport of horse racing, knowing the importance of the moment to everyone involved in it. To think that a day later, the same people who were cheering on that Saturday could not fairly critique one of the sport’s racetracks or governing bodies or a leading horseman is a ridiculous assumption. If anything, it showed an understanding of the accomplishment and what it meant.
Perhaps some were merely celebrating the fact that they longer had to type the dreaded word  “drought” in next year’s Triple Crown stories.
My own reaction and that of others around me was not much different from that of the trainers and jockeys who competed against American Pharoah and smiled after losing to him. They knew it was a moment bigger and more important than a single $1.5-million horse race. It was about a heartwarming scene of a nation falling in love with a horse and how so many of us are suckers for that image.
In the end, while leaving the track that night and reflecting on what had happened, I thought about an old friend and great turf writer, Bill Handleman.
Bill, who passed away in 2010, was a master at writing about any sport for the Asbury Park Press, but he loved horse racing and loved betting on the races even more. He would spend his summer days at Monmouth Park, and a far corner of the press box there was considered his office.
During one visit to Monmouth, I joined another colleague in watching a race with Bill from his perch in the press box. We had wagers on the race and while watching it, we tried to offer verbal encouragement to our horse.
Quickly, Bill scolded us, saying, “There’s no cheering in the press box … except for my horse!”
On Saturday, June 6, 2015, I’m sure Bill, despite no doubt trying to bet against the favorite, would have been grinning as he watched the 147th Belmont Stakes and saluted a horse that met his criteria for vocal support. American Pharoah became America’s horse that day and the cheers for that marvelous 3-year-old – be they from the press box, the grandstand, or from someone watching on television – were cheers for their horse.
Just don’t ask one any one of them to express what they felt in a few words. As some people used to say about a Triple Crown sweep before American Pharoah came on the scene, it can’t be done.
TRIPLE CROWN WINNERS

Year  
Horse
Owner
Jockey
Trainer

2015
American Pharoah
Zayat Stables
Victor Espinoza
Bob Baffert

1978
Affirmed
Harbor View Farm
Steve Cauthen
Laz Barrera

1977
Seattle Slew
Karen Taylor
Jean Cruguet
Billy Turner

1973
Secretariat
Meadow Stable
Ron Turcotte
Lucien Lauren

1948
Citation
Calumet Farm
Eddie Arcaro
Jimmy Jones

1946
Assault
King Ranch
Warren Meehrtens
Max Hirsch

1943
Count Fleet
Mrs. John D. Hertz  
John Longden
Don Cameron

1941
Whirlaway
Calumet Farm
Eddie Arcaro
Ben Jones

1937
War Admiral
Samuel Riddle
Charlie Kurtsinger
George Conway

1935
Omaha
Belair Stud
William Saunders
James Fitzsimmons

1930
Gallant Fox
Belair Stud
Earle Sands
James Fitzsimmons

1919
Sir Barton
J.K.L. Ross
John Loftus
H. Guy Bedwell