American Pharoah Kentucky's Top Sportsman
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Photo: Anne M. Eberhardt
American Pharoah
In record-setting fashion, Triple Crown winner American Pharoah became the first horse to win the Lexington Herald-Leader Kentucky Sportsman of the Year honor Jan. 26.
American Pharoah received a record 141 first-place votes from the record 163 votes cast by Kentucky media members for this year’s award. American Pharoah posted an 897-point victory over the runner-up, University of Kentucky men’s basketball coach John Calipari. That margin of victory also is a record in the award’s 35-year history.
Kentucky-bred horses are eligible for the award. American Pharoah scored two of his biggest 2015 victories of 2015 in Kentucky, starting his Triple Crown run with a victory in the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I) at Churchill Downs and ending his season with an emphatic victory against older horses in the Breeders’ Cup Classic (gr. I) at Keeneland.
Zayat Stables' homebred American Pharoah become the first horse to win the Kentucky Sportsman of the Year honor. Previously, the highest finish for an equine athlete was fourth by Sunday Silence in 1989.