They were queuing outside the racetrack at 6.30am, half an hour before the gates to the Clubhouse were scheduled to open. Hundreds of them. Punters just wanting a glimpse of Triple Crown winner American Pharoah at Saratoga.
They were queuing outside the racetrack at 6.30am, half an hour before the gates to the Clubhouse were scheduled to open. Hundreds of them. Punters just wanting a glimpse of Triple Crown winner American Pharoah at Saratoga.
By the time the star three-year-old stepped on to the track for a routine work-out two hours later, there were 5,000. In the grandstand and lining the backstretch. They cheered and shouted, they took endless pictures and 'selfies.'
The fact that American Pharoah did little more than canter a circuit of the main track didn't seem to matter. The colt is a sporting celebrity. Bob Baffert, his trainer, has played his part by enhancing the media coverage with his endless charm.
On the big day, Saturday, there will be 50,000 packing America's most beautiful racetrack for the G1 Travers Stakes, the race billed as America's Midsummer Derby. There is a lot of truth in that description. Its slot in the racing calendar comes nearly four months after the Kentucky Derby.
This year's Travers at Saratoga is being described as the most historic horse race in America in 75 years. The pundits might well be right.
When you consider that claim in the context of the Secretariat era in the early 1970s, the arch rivalry of Affirmed and Alydar later that decade, as well as the clashes of Sunday Silence and Easy Goer in the late 1980s, you appreciate the boldness of the statement.
Over the decades, there have been many great races that became part of the folklore of the sport.
But whatever your view, there can be no doubt that American Pharoah has captured the imagination of American sports fans like only a Triple Crown winner can.
There is something magical about a horse capable of pulling it off. What follows after, most times determines their final position in the pecking order of galloping greats.
I must say, I have not seen a horse until this one, so robust of mind and limb as to cope with the constant racing and travel. American Pharoah is about to be saddled for his seventh run of the season...and it is August. He has had 13 plane trips this year alone.
In the build-up to this year's Travers, there has been regular reference to it being the 'graveyard of champions.' Whirlaway, ridden by Eddie Acaro in 1941, is still the only Triple Crown winner to win the Travers. Three have attempted it.
And there are plenty of contenders among the 10 declared for this latest renewal, who will be willing to have a real crack at beating the favourite.
American Pharoah's record stands at eight wins from nine starts. His only defeat came on his debut, in a maiden, over six and a half furlongs, on a synthetic surface at Del Mar, his home track. He started 7/5 favourite but was beaten nearly 10 lengths.
Who is best credentialled to inflict a second career defeat on the star?
Step forward Godolphin's Frosted, who was fourth in the Kentucky Derby, second in the Belmont, and, according to his trainer Kiaran McLaughlin, a beautiful individual, who is in the best form of his life.
Frosted might well be the 'sleeping' David, ready to fell American racing's Goliath.
Texas Red, a Breeders' Cup hero, is an old rival of the favourite, and his win in the Jim Dandy earlier in the month was meritorious. But runner-up Frosted was giving him 4lb and lost a shoe in transit.
