Saratoga Diary: The Pharoah Has Landed

Fellow America’s Best Racing ambassador Dan Tordjman and I arrived at the backside at Saratoga Race Course around 2 p.m. ET to find our way to John Terranova’s barn was so that we could be perfectly in place when the champ, American Pharoah, arrived.  
After a short detour around the backside, we were among the first 20 people to arrive at Barn 25.

Funny Cide, the 2003 Kentucky Derby winner, joined American Pharoah on “Air Horse One” in Lexington and off they went for New York. We tracked the flight online from the time they departed from the Blue Grass Airport. After landing at Albany International Airport at 1:54 p.m., the horses boarded their respective vans and American Pharoah and his trusty sidekick, Smokey the pony, began the trip to Saratoga.
While awaiting the arrival there was no shortage of “Where are they now?” questions, followed quickly with the answer found on Twitter. Twitter is great — especially in horse racing, people are on top of it — we knew what exit they were passing and when.
I couldn’t help but notice these gorgeous red roses on the table.  Turns out, a fan had sent them to American Pharoah.

When we saw a tweet that they had just passed over THE bridges, we knew American Pharoah was getting close! Apparently, there were people stopped along Northway waiting for their chance to see the horses and waving at the van.
Finally, it was our turn to see Pharoah. First came the state trooper and trailing right behind was Brook Ledge horse van. 

American Pharoah, led by assistant trainer Jimmy Barnes, came off the van first, followed by Smokey (I was so busy trying to shoot pictures of Pharoah, I only manage to get a shot of Smokey’s rear end. Oops!).

They walked up and down the trees outside of the barn. So many people were out there to cover his arrival; it was pretty exciting! 

American Pharoah walked down by us, took a drink of water, made a U-turn and walked back down.

Pharoah is so mellow and calm. He definitely knows when he’s getting his picture taken. I swear, he hears the clicks go off and totally poses for the cameras. And boy do people love him! There were crowd of media, fans, NYRA employees and others on both ends of Terranova’s barn.

After walking back and forth through the trees and engaging the media and fans at both ends of the barn (for 20 minutes or so), it was finally bath time! 

They put on his cape (that’s what I’m calling it because he’s super-horse), walked him around a bit more and headed into stall 11 for some R&R. He’s got a big weekend ahead of him.

American Pharoah and the rest of the Travers Stakes field will be out on Saratoga’s main track Friday morning at 8:45 a.m. Don’t miss it.