Drape - American Pharoah: the untold story of the Triple Crown winners legendary rise

I was beginning to believe that I was never going to see a horse capture the Triple Crown. I was kid in the 1970s when Affirmed, Seattle Slew, and Secretariat made sweeping the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes look easy. I was merely a fan then, one who was soon to be transformed into a horseplayer. My father taught me how to read the Daily Racing Form, and my mother loved horses and spending an afternoon at the track.

As my career as a journalist progressed and took me on assignments across the country and even the world, I found myself with a lot of downtime. So I went, and still go, to racetracksat last count, more than ninety in seven countries. They range from a bush track in Rayne, Louisiana, where Cajun farmers race quarter horses and Thoroughbreds for as little as $300, to Royal Ascot, Queen Elizabeth IIs track not too far from Windsor Castle in the English countryside. Theres the challenge of puzzling over a horses past performances and deciding if this is his day to win. There is the camaraderie and cockeyed optimism of horseplayers chasing a score. Best of all are the horseslovely creatures that take my breath away when their strides stretch out effortlessly with their feet barely touching the ground.

Long before I wrote about race horses, I owned them, which helped me appreciate the great costs, great responsibility, and great thrill that come with being part of the sport. Horses are athletes, spectacular ones, and depend on their grooms, trainers, and owners to do right by them. Sometimes that is easier said than done and, as a result, a great deal of my work has focused on what is wrong with what can be a beautiful sport.

Over the past two decades covering horse racing, however, I have never stopped wanting to see a great horse up close, a Triple Crown champion. On seven previous occasions, I have spent a Saturday afternoon in June at Belmont Park hoping that by days end I would be writing the first draft of history (as journalism is called) about Americas twelfth Triple Crown champion. I was heartbroken the first couple of times but eventually learned to manage my expectations.

If I thought the quest for a Triple Crown was futile, what could casual sports fans have possibly thought after thirty-seven years without the sweep successfully competed?

We found out on June 6, 2015, when Victor Espinoza and American Pharoah hit the stretch of that grand old racetrack on Long Island in total command of the Belmont Stakes. Words really cannot summarize the sheer joy and the volume of the noise in which the duo were greeted. It was soul quaking. Ive been to Olympics and Super Bowls, World Series and NCAA championships and every kind of sporting event in between, but never have I experienced this kind of communal celebration.