Strike A Pose:Am Pharoah Featured In August Issue Of Vogue
Jul 21, 2015 22:58:57 GMT -5
Post by Evelyn on Jul 21, 2015 22:58:57 GMT -5
Strike A Pose: American Pharoah Featured In August Issue Of Vogue
Paulick Report/Vogue
American Pharoah, the Historic Triple Crown Winner, Weighs His Options for One More Run for Glory
by Robert Sullivan|photographed by Steven Klein
Vogue
What do you do after you’ve really done it all—which, in American Pharoah’s case, means being the first horse in 37 years to win the Triple Crown? You can, of course, head out to rest, along with the other things that horses do when they are put out to pasture—this Thoroughbred’s breeding rights were sold even before his win at the Belmont Stakes.
Or you can saddle up for the paddock one more time. The owner of American Pharoah, Ahmed Zayat, was saying the other day that he is inclined toward the latter. “We want to cap his racing career with something that’s never been done in the history of sports,” Zayat told me. He was talking about winning the Breeders’ Cup in October—a feat that, in combination with a Triple Crown win, has been deemed the Grand Slam. But while Grand Slam bets are already being taken, Pharoah’s participation is by no means a sure thing.
“We don’t know yet,” says his trainer, Bob Baffert, who, with his standout mane of white hair and his decades spent training America’s fastest and finest horses (he’s won four Kentucky Derbies, six Preakness Stakes, and two Belmont Stakes, to name a few), likes the idea of maybe trying a couple of races, but nothing’s set in stone. “I’m letting the horse dictate where we’ll run,” Baffert says. “I feel like I owe it to him.”
Which means that American Pharoah will be back at the stables, training, as he was on a recent day in Louisville, the lights coming on at the backside (track talk for the stables) of Churchill Downs just about dawn, Pharoah’s nighttime leg wrappings removed, a walk to the track for a jog. There’s a subdued elegance to everything about this storied, workaday track, a feeling of being at the center of a long-refined saddled-and-harnessed world. Clear blue skies, warm morning air, nearly-too-green Kentucky grass at the center of the oval of roughed-up dirt: a gorgeous backdrop to a gorgeous stallion as he works out, moving like no other horse, his extraordinarily wide heart girth (chest, to non–horse people) affording him his distinctive gracefulness, his streamlined mechanics.
Then, back in the stables, Pharoah stands in his stall, his jet-black mane racing down a coat almost luminous with good health, his thighs quivering with strength, his shoulders muscle-mapped. It’s like standing next to a power source, or a waterfall held momentarily in check. His eyes look down at you, at first intimidating, though any fear is defused when the horse nudges the visitor to relax and snuggles in almost comically for a carrot, bending down a head that starts higher than an NBA center’s and ends in your held-out hand. People now know about Pharoah’s thing for carrots, and since the day he landed in his custom jumbo jet at the Louisville airport (the plane’s touchdown covered live by TV news, the horse’s descent down the gangplank photographed by the pilot) and was driven to his stables (police escort, people lining the streets, helicopters overhead), they have come by the thousands hoping to get a glimpse of royalty, many of them bearing carrots in bunches. “He’s not accepting carrots at this time,” security says. They’re just being polite—in fact he is, but only the small, already peeled kind. Special horse, special carrots.
And now, barely a week after his monumental victory, Pharoah was about to get back in his stall aboard his jet. Next stop, Santa Anita, California, where he will begin to train, taking it day by day, Baffert and company weighing the pros and cons of racing the horse. Naturally, expectations are enormous. “There’s more pressure now training him because he’s become this icon of racing,” Baffert says.
At the Zayat house, Ahmed was thinking along the same lines, as he mentioned to his son Justin recently. “I feel happy for you and sad for you,” Ahmed said to Justin, who is also his racing manager. “Happy because you are 23 years old, but sad because I don’t know what you can do for an encore.”
Ahmed’s experience with the horse—their relationship, that is—indicates that everything, as the saying goes, will work out. “I’m going to sound wacko here,” Zayat said, “but he actually responds to my demeanor. If I’m nervous, I can tell from his eyes. He’s saying, ‘Don’t worry—I’ll get this done for you.’ ”
American Pharoah near his stables at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky
Paulick Report/Vogue
American Pharoah, the Historic Triple Crown Winner, Weighs His Options for One More Run for Glory
by Robert Sullivan|photographed by Steven Klein
Vogue
What do you do after you’ve really done it all—which, in American Pharoah’s case, means being the first horse in 37 years to win the Triple Crown? You can, of course, head out to rest, along with the other things that horses do when they are put out to pasture—this Thoroughbred’s breeding rights were sold even before his win at the Belmont Stakes.
Or you can saddle up for the paddock one more time. The owner of American Pharoah, Ahmed Zayat, was saying the other day that he is inclined toward the latter. “We want to cap his racing career with something that’s never been done in the history of sports,” Zayat told me. He was talking about winning the Breeders’ Cup in October—a feat that, in combination with a Triple Crown win, has been deemed the Grand Slam. But while Grand Slam bets are already being taken, Pharoah’s participation is by no means a sure thing.
“We don’t know yet,” says his trainer, Bob Baffert, who, with his standout mane of white hair and his decades spent training America’s fastest and finest horses (he’s won four Kentucky Derbies, six Preakness Stakes, and two Belmont Stakes, to name a few), likes the idea of maybe trying a couple of races, but nothing’s set in stone. “I’m letting the horse dictate where we’ll run,” Baffert says. “I feel like I owe it to him.”
Which means that American Pharoah will be back at the stables, training, as he was on a recent day in Louisville, the lights coming on at the backside (track talk for the stables) of Churchill Downs just about dawn, Pharoah’s nighttime leg wrappings removed, a walk to the track for a jog. There’s a subdued elegance to everything about this storied, workaday track, a feeling of being at the center of a long-refined saddled-and-harnessed world. Clear blue skies, warm morning air, nearly-too-green Kentucky grass at the center of the oval of roughed-up dirt: a gorgeous backdrop to a gorgeous stallion as he works out, moving like no other horse, his extraordinarily wide heart girth (chest, to non–horse people) affording him his distinctive gracefulness, his streamlined mechanics.
Then, back in the stables, Pharoah stands in his stall, his jet-black mane racing down a coat almost luminous with good health, his thighs quivering with strength, his shoulders muscle-mapped. It’s like standing next to a power source, or a waterfall held momentarily in check. His eyes look down at you, at first intimidating, though any fear is defused when the horse nudges the visitor to relax and snuggles in almost comically for a carrot, bending down a head that starts higher than an NBA center’s and ends in your held-out hand. People now know about Pharoah’s thing for carrots, and since the day he landed in his custom jumbo jet at the Louisville airport (the plane’s touchdown covered live by TV news, the horse’s descent down the gangplank photographed by the pilot) and was driven to his stables (police escort, people lining the streets, helicopters overhead), they have come by the thousands hoping to get a glimpse of royalty, many of them bearing carrots in bunches. “He’s not accepting carrots at this time,” security says. They’re just being polite—in fact he is, but only the small, already peeled kind. Special horse, special carrots.
And now, barely a week after his monumental victory, Pharoah was about to get back in his stall aboard his jet. Next stop, Santa Anita, California, where he will begin to train, taking it day by day, Baffert and company weighing the pros and cons of racing the horse. Naturally, expectations are enormous. “There’s more pressure now training him because he’s become this icon of racing,” Baffert says.
At the Zayat house, Ahmed was thinking along the same lines, as he mentioned to his son Justin recently. “I feel happy for you and sad for you,” Ahmed said to Justin, who is also his racing manager. “Happy because you are 23 years old, but sad because I don’t know what you can do for an encore.”
Ahmed’s experience with the horse—their relationship, that is—indicates that everything, as the saying goes, will work out. “I’m going to sound wacko here,” Zayat said, “but he actually responds to my demeanor. If I’m nervous, I can tell from his eyes. He’s saying, ‘Don’t worry—I’ll get this done for you.’ ”
American Pharoah near his stables at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky
