Baffert, American Pharoah bask in Triple Crown glory

ELMONT, N.Y. - Racetrack lifers, those who knew Bob Baffert well enough to wander inside Barn 1 at Belmont Park, congregated in a corner as American Pharoah walked around the shed row. One guy held Baffert's coffee while the trainer signed a Belmont Stakes program for him.

Out on Hempstead Turnpike, just over a fence, traffic spilled by, past a Wendy's and a Subway across the street, which seemed a world away. Inside the fence, there was an air of contentment. Why would the glow wear off? Just after 7 o'clock Sunday morning, barely more than 12 hours after he had raced into history, American Pharoah stood next to his trainer as Baffert talked and cameras clicked.

"Anybody like to touch his head or anything?" Baffert asked.

The crowd closed in. There were plenty there with cameras who love horses, and what's not to love about a Triple Crown winner? American Pharoah had answered all the questions Saturday evening over on the main track. The colt didn't move a muscle as those cameras practically engulfed him. It was a crazy scene, yet also serene.

"He likes people," Baffert said. "He won't care."

It's not his disposition that makes American Pharoah historic. A writer from Louisville mentioned to Baffert that American Pharoah had gone the last quarter mile of the 11/2-mile Belmont Stakes faster than Secretariat had when he had famously moved like a tremendous machine.

"He did?" Baffert said.

And, she added, American Pharoah's last half-mile was faster than his first half-mile.

Those facts actually went together. The ease that American Pharoah was able to go early under Victor Espinoza's direction allowed the colt to click off basically the same fractions late. Every two-furlong segment, all six of them, was run somewhere between 24 and 25 seconds.

Those same kinds of fractions, pulled off effortlessly during American Pharoah's final full workout the week before at Churchill Downs, had caused the Daily Racing Form's expert clocker, not the kind to go for hyperbole, to tweet out simply, "American Pharoah . . . WOW!!"

"His works at Churchill Downs were just incredible," Baffert said.

The only time his horse really got tired, Baffert said, was in the Kentucky Derby itself, when the pre-race craziness got to the horse - specifically, people running around him on the walk over to the paddock, Baffert said - and American Pharoah also had to use a lot of his energy early in the race to make it to the front group. But even that was a positive, Baffert said. "He needed a really hard race."

The slop of the Preakness was to American Pharoah's liking and he skipped over a sealed track, so that race apparently didn't take too much out of him.

In eight lifetime starts, the horse has lost only once, in his first race last August at Del Mar. Since then, American Pharoah won seven times, in six states, including in six Grade I races, by a cumulative 351/2 lengths.

The trainer of the first Triple Crown winner in 37 years, firmly on top of his sport again, still sounded humbled by his horse.

"Sometimes I can't believe I have him in my barn," Baffert said. "That's what he makes me feels like. How did this horse come around?"

The trainer admits to being different than when he first broke on the scene. He watched an ESPN piece about himself that included old footage and said, "I was sort of obnoxious. I forgot about that. Oh my God, look at how obnoxious I was."

The horse also has grown.

"When he first came in, he was all over the place," Baffert said. "He was nervous. he was jumping around . . . He was a little bit of a head case. He was always like ducking and trying to get away from horses. He wasn't really a great student."

Trips to the paddock every day, Baffert said, day after day, calmed him down.

"Never had a bad day with him after that," the trainer said.

Asked whether he really thinks American Pharoah will run again, Baffert said, "Definitely, yeah, if he's healthy." Of course, the horse's future really isn't up to the trainer. If an already-signed stud agreement allows the horse to run for the rest of the year, it will be up to the owner, Ahmet Zayat, who still sounds very positive about it happening.

Does Baffert have a plan yet? "There aren't many options," he said, although Baffert mentioned the Haskell, bringing up the race at Monmouth Park himself, while not sounding too keen on taking him to the Travers at Saratoga.

"I want to make sure that when I run him, there's not going to be an Onion out there that's going to beat him," Baffert said, referring to the horse that upset Secretariat after his Triple Crown victory.

Within the hour, American Pharoah was on a van for the airport, headed back to Churchill Downs for a couple of weeks. Baffert made it clear that Louisville deserved to see the great 3-year-old. The Twin Spires at Churchill had been lit up in American Pharoah's honor Saturday night along with a bridge in town. After his bluegrass stop, American Pharoah will return home to Southern California.

"We're going to share him with everyone - he's our Stanley Cup," Baffert said. "I've got to go take him around, I've got to show him off."