It all starts anew for American Pharoah on Sunday.
He will make his majestic comeback in the $1.75 million William Hill Haskell Invitational and begin the final phase of a career that is already certain to be enshrined in racing's National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame.
The expected record turnout at Monmouth Park serves as a crystal clear reflection of the way he has been embraced by not just a racing industry that was in dire need of a hero, but mainstream America as well. The image of the Zayat Stables superstar crossing the finish line in the Belmont Stakes amidst the delirious celebration through every inch of Belmont Park is one that will always be fondly attached to him and him alone.
When last seen on that historic June 6 afternoon, American Pharoah was a 3-year-old trying to achieve the unthinkable. It was believed the days of a horse being able to sweep the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes in a five-week span were long gone. Now he's the national idol who finally ended an insufferable 37-year Triple Crown drought and who has absolutely nothing left to prove to anyone.
His final races, be there one or four of them, are simply about an opportunity for fans to revel in a horse more than three decades in the making and for owner Ahmed Zayat's homebred colt to be properly ranked among the legendary champions who came before him.
That process begins with Sunday's Haskell and promises to take American Pharoah down a challenging path as the races get progressively tougher. As invincible as he might seem at the moment, others who have traveled that road in the past have stumbled on it. Of the 10 Triple Crown winners before him who continued racing, only two (Citation in 1947 and War Admiral in 1937) managed to win all of their remaining races as a 3-year-old.
There is indeed logic to all that. It's a simple fact that in the spring, a brilliant but still developing 3-year-old is usually not as fast as a brilliant older horse. That equation, however, can change rather dramatically in the late summer and fall when the 3-year-old matures and begins to reach its full potential, creating situations like last year when a trio of different 3-year-olds was victorious in important Grade 1 races like the Pacific Classic, Jockey Club Gold Cup and Breeders' Cup Classic.
The undisputed leader of the 3-year-old division, American Pharoah faces the same scenario. As dominant as he was against his fellow sophomores, he has yet to race fast enough to defeat the year's best older horses and the Haskell figures to serve as the first indication of whether he's poised for spectacular efforts going forward or if the Triple Crown exhausted him.
Final times decide horse races but speed figures are the best tool for appraising an equine performance, and Ragozin Data and Publishing ranks among the industry leaders in that regard. Commonly known as "The Sheets," Ragozin assigns a number for a horse's effort using not just comparative final times, but also takes into consideration ground loss, weight carried and wind, among other factors.
On the Ragozin scale, lower numbers are faster, and to date American Pharoah sports a career best Sheets number of 3-3/4, which he earned in both the Belmont Stakes and Kentucky Derby as well as the Arkansas Derby and Rebel.
"In terms of American Pharoah, he's a very reasonable Triple Crown horse," said Len Friedman, a founding father of The Sheets along with Len Ragozin. "His numbers are solid and he ran three pretty good races in a row, so he deserved to win the Triple Crown. Yet he's not an outstanding horse right now, he's a very good horse. Perhaps later in the year, he'll become an outstanding horse.
"You have to keep in mind that the same could be said about [Triple Crown champions] Affirmed [a 4 in the 1978 Derby] and Seattle Slew [7, 1977 Kentucky Derby]. They did not run dominant numbers in the Triple Crown and they were not anything near Secretariat [3/4, 1973 Derby] and Spectacular Bid [1-3/4, 1979 Derby]. Those were the two really outstanding 3-year-olds of the modern era."
So far.
While Friedman's categorizes Tonalist as the best and fastest active member of the older handicap division, the 2014 Belmont Stakes winner has been registering numbers in the range of 2-1/2 and the progression American Pharoah would need to beat him or another top horse in a race like the Breeders' Cup Classic is certainly within reach.
"To ultimately win the Breeders' Cup Classic he has to improve, but not really that much. The older horses this year are not that good. Because of injuries, there are only a couple who can run pretty well. Tonalist is very good," Friedman said. "I think American Pharoah has a chance to win the Breeders' Cup. I'd say it's a 20-25 percent chance, which is pretty good when you're talking in July about a race at the end of October. Tonalist is the fastest horse now and he also has 20-25 percent chance."
That, of course, involves October and what takes place Sunday will play a big role in determining in what happens down the road. If American Pharoah is hard-pressed to win in slow time, it could be a sign that his racing days are at an end. Conversely, fans at Monmouth would no doubt love to see a Secretariat-like romp in world-record time, but in Friedman's eyes that would have future consequences. His ideal comeback race for American Pharoah off a two-month break would be a modest new top number, in spite of facing a relatively weak array of rivals in the Haskell.
"I'd say a 3-1/4 would be great," Friedman said, "followed by an easy 5 in slop like he got in the Preakness. That would get him to the 2 or 1 he'll need in the Breeders' Cup.
"He can't run a 1 in the Haskell," he added. "If he runs a 1 in one of his next two races, that will not be good for him. Horses with consistent patterns like him eventually make a jump but when they do they are usually finished for the short term. He could get back to that 1 at four, but he won't be racing then."
A controversial aspect of any speed figure involves how relative they can be. Though a Triple Crown champion, American Pharoah has yet to post a Ragozin number as good as Zayat's 2012 Haskell winner, Paynter. Runner-up in the 2012 Belmont Stakes, Paynter registered 2's in the spring of his 3-year-old campaign and a career-best of 1 ½ in the Haskell before he suffered and gallantly overcame laminitis.
While comparisons with the past can spark lively debates, what matters more is matching apples with apples. In 2015, no 3-year-old has been able to beat American Pharoah, though in the weeks to come any horse can turn in a freakish effort and register an upset. Yet looking at the big picture, the ability of Zayat's son of Pioneerof the Nile to dominate without turning in a ridiculously fast performance bodes well for him to enjoy a far better fall than the 10 horses in the past 15 years with faster numbers winning Ragozin numbers in the Kentucky Derby -- none of whom went on to win the Breeders' Cup Classic.
Nor does those horses' faster numbers indicate they are better than the colt who did what they couldn't and completed the 12th Triple Crown sweep. Racing has indeed changed in recent years.
"Since the crackdown on steroids and other things horses can no longer run on, it's made racing different and affected the numbers we've seen in the last few 3-year-old classics. They're slower," said Friedman, touching on the mediocre 7-1/4 California Chrome ran while winning last year's Kentucky Derby. "There were a few others with one outstanding number like Big Brown or Monarchos [a minus-1/4 in the 2001 Kentucky Derby] who ran faster than American Pharoah, but they did not put together three big efforts like he did. They were finished, in terms of development, after that one big effort. You have give American Pharoah credit for that. He was fortunate that his weakest race in the Triple Crown was in the slop [a 6 ½ in the Preakness] and he didn't have to run that fast to win that race. Also no one popped up with a big number out of nowhere to beat him in the other races.
"Yet because of all that, there's also a far better chance he'll do better as the year goes on than a horse like Big Brown."
The rest of the year starts Sunday in the Haskell, and if the numbers prove to be right, there just might be a "Phantastic Pharewell" Tour coming to a racetrack near you.