Anything can, and usually does, happen when the starting gates open in a horse race. Yet trainer Kiaran McLaughlin is pretty insistent that history not repeat itself with Frosted, especially with $5 million on the line.
"We will not be chasing American Pharoah as closely as we did in the Travers, for sure," McLaughlin said. "[Jockey Joel Rosario] will be third to sixth early on. We'll let someone else take on American Pharoah."
It's well documented what happened in late August at Saratoga, when the best laid plans of mice, men, horse trainers and rulers of Middle East countries went awry in the $1.6 million Travers Stakes.
Rosario was supposed to ride Godolphin Racing's Frosted, seeking to avenge a runner-up finish to the Zayat Stables star in the horses' last meeting, which came during American Pharoah's coronation as the first Triple Crown champion in 37 years at the Belmont Stakes.
Only Rosario never made it to the starting gate for the Travers. He was injured during a fall in a race on the Travers undercard, and McLaughlin had to bring in Jose Lezcano to handle the reins on Frosted.
An aggressive rider, Lezcano is a perfect fit for another of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum's horses, the speedy Wedding Toast. That front-running McLaughlin-trained mare is a 4-1 morning line favorite in the $2 million Distaff, the centerpiece of Friday's opening day of Breeders' Cup action at Keeneland Race Course.
But on Frosted, Lezcano made a controversial decision to go all Fast and Furious on American Pharoah, hooking the lightning-quick 12th Triple Crown winner in the early furlongs instead of stalking him as Rosario had done in the past.
To a degree it worked as American Pharoah tired in the final sixteenth and finished second. Yet as much as Lezcano and Frosted helped make the race, they didn't win the race. Frosted, exhausted from the challenge of keeping step with Zayat's fleet-footed 3-year-old, fell back at the top of the stretch and wound up third behind the opportunistic Keen Ice.
"Who knows what might have happened that day if Joel had been aboard," McLaughlin said.
As drained as Frosted should have been after the mile-and-a-quarter Travers, it was what happened three weeks later in the Keystone State that adds even more intrigue to their rematch on Saturday at Keeneland Race Course.
"He ran hard in the Travers and most horsemen would have thought that would take something out of him because he ran with American Pharoah for about a mile and an eighth of the mile and a quarter, but he came out of race almost better than he went into of it," McLaughlin said. "He was eating every bit of food afterwards and looking good and happy, so that's why we ran back in three weeks at the Pennsylvania Derby and he ran huge that day. He came out of that race outstanding, so it seems like he's getting better and better at the right time."
The oddsmakers don't think much of Frosted, who is now 0-for-3 in three meetings with the Bob Baffert-trained rock star who will try to complete a "Grand Slam" by winning the $5 million BC Classic (Frosted was fourth in the Kentucky Derby). He's 15-1 on the morning line, a notch above Keen Ice who is 12-1.
The European 3-year-old Gleneagles, a European champion racing on dirt for the first time, is 20-1. It's the older horses who are being painted as the main rivals for American Pharoah, but McLaughlin believes no one should sleep on the sophomores that chased the champion on the Triple Crown trail and are still standing tall in the fall.
"It seems like every year around September people start saying, 'Aw, these 3-year-olds are not that good. They're an ordinary bunch.' But I haven't heard that much at all this year, though I guess it's hard to say that with a Triple Crown winner out there,"
McLaughlin said. "But the 3-year-olds seem to be stacking up well with the older horses. It's exciting to have a top 3-year-old and I hope he's a top 4-year-old next year."
One of the more popular figures around any racetrack, the 54-year-old McLaughlin has won the admiration of many for rising to the top of his profession while battling multiple sclerosis since 1998. He's never allowed neither that hideous disease nor the daily injections he's forced to take to conquer him, and now he stands in a position where he has a solid chance to match Hall of Famer trainer Bill Mott's 2011 feat of winning both the BC Distaff and Classic in the same year.
It won't be easy, but as long as his plans do not once again fall by the wayside when the starting gates open, it's at least an intriguing possibility.