In an instant, less time than it took American Pharoah to pull away from his rivals in the homestretch at Belmont Park last year, 37 years of agony and heartbreak gave way to ecstasy and jubilation.
Employees leapt onto one another’s backs, reporters cheered and cried, and fans danced and howled late into the night, stopping only to snap selfies and capture the moment when American Pharoah became the 12th Triple Crown champion and the first since Affirmed in 1978.
American Pharoah’s normally loquacious trainer, Bob Baffert, however, was rendered speechless. “I was just enjoying the call and the crowd, the noise, and everything happening,” he said after American Pharoah won the mile-and-a-half race by five and a half lengths.