Ideal End to Magical Season for Zayats, American Pharoah

Ahmed Zayat accepts an Eclipse Award on Saturday night at Gulfstream Park. Zayat Stables accepted the Horse of the Year and champion 3-year-old male Eclipse Awards for his homebred Triple Crown winner American Pharoah as well as Eclipse Awards as outstanding owner and breeder. (Photo by Penelope P. Miller/America's Best Racing)
Ahmed Zayat has likened the Eclipse Awards to the Academy Awards and on Saturday the team behind American Pharoah enjoyed the kind of night the cast of “The Revenant” or “The Martian” will be hard-pressed to match.
A victory tour some 37 years in the making reached its crescendo with American Pharoah receiving an array of post-season rewards befitting the first Triple Crown winner since 1978 and very first Grand Slam champion.
The Zayat Stables mega star was honored at the 45th annual Eclipse Awards as Horse of the Year as well as the champion 3-year-old male of 2015 and his considerable coattails carried his connections to awards for outstanding owner and breeder (Zayat Stables) and outstanding trainer (Bob Baffert).
“Tonight was the crowning of ‘The Pharoah,’ ” said Zayat, the 53-year-old Egyptian-born New Jersey businessman who has been racing under the Zayat Stables banner since 2006. “He has done everything that could be asked of him on the racetrack — a champion at two, the Triple Crown, the Grand Slam and now 2015 Horse of the Year. If you want the definition of what majestic means in a racehorse, it’s American Pharoah.
ONE FOR THE AGES

“This is like an Oscar night for horsemen and the game’s fans and players. We all compete and try to showcase our horses and recognition like this, to be frank, is very much appreciated.”
The celebration on Saturday night brought full circle a 24 hour-stretch of completely contrasting emotions for Zayat and his family.
Late Friday night Zayat and his wife, Joanne, escaped without harm from a fire that broke out in their suite on the 30th floor at the Diplomat Resort and Spa in Hollywood, Fla. Zayat said the damage was thankfully limited to some personal property and wet clothing from fire sprinklers.
“It was very scary and could have been a total disaster,” he said in a text. “We are shaken but thank God nobody got hurt. We are very fortunate and lucky. The fire department and police did a great job.”
On Saturday evening, at the Eclipse ceremonies at Gulfstream Park, the family’s rattled mood transitioned to festive as their iconic colt was royally saluted for a storybook campaign.
In ending 37 years of futility and near misses, American Pharoah became just the 12th Triple Crown winner during a practically perfect season that featured seven victories in eight starts, six of them in Grade 1 stakes. Aside from his historic sweep of the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes and a career-ending triumph in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, he captured the Haskell Invitational Stakes, Arkansas Derby and Rebel Stakes. His lone blemish was a loss by three-quarters of a length to Keen Ice in the Travers Stakes at Saratoga Race Course, when he finished second while bidding to become the first Triple Crown champion to win the “Midsummer Derby” since Whirlaway in 1941.
American Pharoah earned a single-year record $8,288,800 in 2015 and retired in fourth place on the sport’s all-time earnings list for North American-based runners with $8,650,300.
“I don’t think what has happened this year has sunk in yet,” Zayat said. “I still can’t believe I bred a Triple Crown champion. I still wonder why me? Why my stable?”
ZAYAT PLANTS A KISS ON AMERICAN PHAROAH AFTER THE BREEDERS' CUP

Photo by Eclipse Sportswire
The Zayat Stables homebred mesmerized fans, drawing huge crowds as he toured the country like a rock star. He traveled from trainer Bob Baffert’s California base to race at seven different tracks in five different states amidst incredible fanfare.
In August, in a sight unseen in a centuries-old sport, he attracted at least 15,000 people to Saratoga on the morning before the Travers just to watch him gallop around the famed racetrack.
“What he’s done is everlasting and he cemented his legacy in the history of this sport, and he can now be spoken in the same sentence as the sport’s greatest stars, such as Secretariat and others,” Zayat said. “This horse did not duck anyone. He faced older horses. He traveled 20,000 miles and won six Grade 1s at six different tracks, under different distances and conditions. There were no excuses. He did not have to take his racetrack with him. In his only loss, he ran his heart out.”
Zayat, whose stable has amassed nearly $50-million in purse earnings since its inception 10 years ago, was grateful to receive his first Eclipse Award as outstanding owner during the gala awards dinner and expressed great satisfaction in operating what he considers to be more than just a “one-horse stable.”
“Most people do not know our record as a stable,” Zayat said. “Since 2006, we have finished five times in the top five among owners in terms of money won. We’ve had 24 Grade 1 winners and 98 stakes winners. We’re not a one-horse stable. We have created 14 stallions, which is more than any other stable in America. People ask me ‘Why are you up for outstanding owner?’ and I say, ‘Are you kidding me?’ In some ways we were overdue for the award.”
ZAYAT GIVES AN INTERVIEW IN CROWDED WINNER'S CIRCLE AFTER 2015 BREEDERS' CUP CLASSIC

Photo by Eclipse Sportswire
Zayat said he took immense pride from breeding American Pharoah, a son of Pioneerof the Nile, the 2009 Kentucky Derby runner-up and one of Zayat’s first two homebreds.
 “With American Pharoah and Pioneerof the Nile as progeny of Empire Maker, people are saying we have created the Z line,” Zayat said, “and we took it to the next level with the first Triple Crown winner in 37 years.”
Adding to Zayat’s mirth, he says American Pharoah’s sire bears the nickname that was bestowed on him when he was a young businessman in Egypt.
“You can’t make this up,” Zayat said. “Pioneerof the Nile was the nickname that people gave me in Egypt because I was the first to do things with my business [Al-Ahram Beverages Company], like privatize it and modernize it and add different beverage lines. Then that horse becomes a Grade 1 winner and now he sires a Triple Crown champion who is named American Pharoah, which represents where I live and where I was born. American Pharoah’s dam, Littleprincessemma, is named after my youngest daughter, Emma. I am so lucky and fortunate and blessed, and with all of these names linked to this experience, nothing could have turned out better than the way it did.”
AMERICAN PHAROAH WINNING THE BREEDERS' CUP CLASSIC

Photo by Eclipse Sportswire
Zayat also expressed his gratitude to his oldest son, Justin, who serves as the racing manager for Zayat Stables, as well as Baffert, who received his fourth Eclipse Award as outstanding trainer, and Victor Espinoza, who was a finalist for the Eclipse Award as outstanding jockey.
“Bob was 24/7 with this horse for two years. He knew him better than anyone. He knew this horse was different from any other horse he had ever seen and the way he managed this horse was brilliant,” Zayat said. “He used all of his experience in developing classic winners during a Hall of Fame career to turn American Pharoah into a horse who could float over a racetrack. With the help of [assistant trainer Jim Barnes], who lived with this horse since March, and the rest of their team, Bob brought out the grace, the brilliance in American Pharoah and he tirelessly shared him with the legion of fans who came to his barn hoping to take a picture with this horse or simply touch him.
“Victor rode American Pharoah with the supreme confidence necessary to endure such a difficult campaign and emerge with a horse who was one of the sport’s greatest champions,” Zayat added. “I give Victor so much credit for not giving up on American Pharoah when he didn’t break well in the Kentucky Derby and his brilliant ride that day set in motion everything else that happened in an unforgettable year. Victor had so much confidence in this horse that he was able to teach him how to rate in the Arkansas Derby. That was all Victor. Anyone could have ridden American Pharoah but to bring out a new dimension in him in the Arkansas Derby was something very special.”
AMERICAN PHAROAH WINNING ARKANSAS DERBY

COADY PHOTOGRAPHY
With American Pharoah now enjoying life at stud at Coolmore America, Zayat expects a quiet year on the Triple Crown trail.
“Next year we’ll be back,” Zayat said. “We have an incredible crop of 2-year-olds. It’s one of the best crops I’ve ever had, and that’s saying a lot. I’ve just come back from seeing them at Ocala and I’ve never been this excited.”
Zayat, though, has one 3-year-old worthy of special mention. He’s an unraced colt named Jazzy Times, who is trained by Baffert is about a month away from his first start.
“He had some typical baby issues that slowed him last year and it’s too late to consider him a serious Triple Crown horse, but he’s the fastest 3-year-old in Bob’s barn,” Zayat said. “He’s freakish fast.”
In perhaps an even greater testament to the expectations surrounding Jazzy Times, the son of Discreetly Mine recently received a rather humbling honor.
“We took a stable vote,” Zayat said, “and we decided to give him American Pharoah’s stall at Bob’s Santa Anita barn.”
Even if Jazzy Times becomes a Grade 1 winner, Zayat knows the new occupant of that stall at Santa Anita will always race in the shadow of the horse that came before him — and he won’t be alone. Every other horse to carry the turquoise and gold colors of Zayat Stables figures to be overshadowed by the fond memories of a predecessor who had credentials along the lines of Triple Crown and Grand Slam winner and on Saturday added 2015 Horse of the Year to those laurels.
“I hope people remember how sweet this horse was, how they had access to him and how they and their children, their grandchildren could touch him,” Zayat said. “I hope they remember how brilliant he was, how fast he was. Don’t remember Ahmed Zayat or Zayat Stables. Remember American Pharoah.”
Remember American Pharoah?
It’s a foregone conclusion.
ZAYAT GIVES BAFFERT A ZAYAT STABLES BANDANA WHILE ALLOWING FANS ACCESS TO THE CHAMPION

Photo by Eclipse Sportswire