Triple Crown hero Pharoah stunned in Travers Stakes

Trainer Bob baffert leads Triple Crown winning horse American Pharoah upon the horse's return to stable at the Santa Anita Racetrack in Arcadia, California on June 18, 2015 (AFP Photo/Frederic J. Brown)

 

American Pharoah, US racing's first Triple Crown winner in 37 years, was stunned in the Travers Stakes at Saratoga on Saturday by Keen Ice.

The Bob Baffert-trained colt was unable to take his winning streak to nine races as he was overtaken in the finishing straight by a horse he had beaten in the Haskell Invitational on August 2.

With Victor Espinoza again aboard, American Pharoah broke well and took the lead, digging deep to get back in front after he was headed by Frosted.

But Pharoah had nothing left when jockey Javier Castellano brought Keen Ice from the pack to claim the win in the 1 1/4-mile, $1.6 million race on a Saratoga track dubbed the Graveyard of Champions.

Only one of the four Triple Crown winners that ran there -- Whirlaway in 1941 -- has won the Travers. The great Secretariat faltered at Saratoga -- losing in the Whitney there in 1973.
"He dug in today, he just didn't bring his A-game," said a disappointed Baffert. "He looked like he was done early and he kept trying."

Espinoza said he thought Pharoah's daunting 2015 campaign had finally caught up with him, especially the cross-country travel since he won the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes.

The colt had shipped back to California, after winning the Belmont in June, then travelled to New Jersey where he romped to victory in the Haskell.

"He's OK. Maybe just a little bit too much for him, those three weeks flying back and forth," Espinoza said. "He was running pretty comfortably in there but not like he used to before."

Baffert said he didn't know if the defeat -- Pharoah's first since a fifth-place finish in his debut in 2014 -- would mark the end of the horse's racing career -- or if he might yet run in the Breeders' Cup Classic in Lexington, Kentucky, on October 31.

"We've got to sit down and figure it out," Baffert said. "It's hard to digest right now."

Owner Ahmed Zayat, who has already sold American Pharoah's breeding rights, was reported by US media to be leaning toward retiring the champion, just the 12th horse to win US racing's coveted Triple Crown and the first since Affirmed in 1978.