By Mike Kane
Triple Crown winner American Pharoah (Pioneerof the Nile) was all business Thursday–galloping and schooling in the paddock–during his first full day at Saratoga Race Course.
American Pharoah traveled from Del Mar in Southern California to Saratoga Springs Wednesday to run in the GI Travers S. Saturday and, typical for him, showed no signs of fatigue. Assistant trainer Jimmy Barnes decided that the Zayat Stables star did not need time to recover from the cross-country journey and sent him out for a gallop on the main track at 6:30 a.m. At 11 a.m., the bay was given a look around the paddock.
American Pharoah is scheduled to gallop at 8:45 a.m. Friday and a large crowd is expected to attend.
The 146th Travers, whose purse will be boosted to $1.6 million if American Pharoah starts, has a post time of 5:46 p.m. and will be shown live on NBC during a program from 4 to 6 p.m.
Ten horses entered Saratoga's oldest and best-known stakes race, but trainer Rick Violette has said he may scratch Upstart (Flatter). Violette said Thursday morning that he had yet to make a decision on whether Upstart will run.
American Pharoah made his way around Saratoga Race Course under regular rider Jorge Alvarez and Barnes said the colt looked great.
“The horse, boy, he was happy on the track this morning. We really liked what we saw today,” Barnes said. “We galloped probably a mile and a sixteenth. Very high energy. Just what you want to see shipping into a race.”
Barnes said that a gallop made sense and fit into the schedule. American Pharoah worked Sunday, walked Monday, jogged Tuesday, then shipped and walked briefly on Wednesday.
“From what I saw yesterday afternoon, it looked like we needed to gallop,” Barnes said. “He was too happy, too fresh. That's why we made the decision to go ahead and gallop. Just enough to settle him down.”
In Barnes' view, horses need more than one visit to get acclimated to a new track.
“Actually, I like two days of galloping, let him get over the track,” he said. “He tends to maybe look around the first day. The second day, he should be right on schedule, full of business.”
Barnes smiled at the suggestion that American Pharoah could be the first horse to sweep the Triple Crown then add the Haskell Invitational and the Travers.
“That would mean so much to us, to the fans, everybody,” he said. “They really want to see something like this happen. We're really excited about it. I think he's got a good chance to do it.”
Fine weather is forecast for upstate New York for the next few days and the free Friday morning training event is likely to be very popular, espeically because all 50,000 tickets have been sold for the Travers. Some 5,000 turned out to watch Triple Crown winner Secretariat work before the 1973 Whitney–which he lost to Onion. Barnes saw a similar-sized crowd at Monmouth Park watch the colt gallop before his Aug. 2 win in the Haskell Invitational.
“It's going to be great,” he said. “When we were in New Jersey, the fans really came out. I think there was like 5,000 people that came out to see him. It's pretty exciting. When he'll come through the stretch, I'm sure they will applaud like they did there. I hope everyone gets a chance to see him that wasn't able to get into the races.”
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