It’s been said that the pace set by American Pharoah in Saturday’s Travers Stakes was anything but fast, and that he should have had a lot left for the stretch run. In fact, Randy Moss, the lead color commentator for the NBC broadcast, made a pretty big point of the lack of pace. I cannot agree with this assessment.

I researched the split times for the last quarter century of the Mid-Summer Derby, and what I found was interesting. Granted, American Pharoah’s first quarter of :24.28, under Victor Espinoza, was not fast, approximately half a second slower than the recent Travers average, but things started to speed up on the Saratoga backstretch, and really began to cook into the far turn. Clearly, this hounding of the Triple Crown champion would eventually take their toll. Moreover, for more than a quarter mile, beginning by the time they had run six furlongs. The Grade 1 winner Frosted was on American Pharoah’s throatlatch. Through a mile, his competitor could not have been any closer, as the respective jockeys were bumping boots coming into the stretch run. Any thoughts that this was a slow pace should be dismissed when looking at the mile time.

Moss suggested that American Pharoah should have exerted his dominance and left Frosted behind by this juncture,"If this was the American Pharoah that we’ve seen in the Triple Crown and the Haskell, as Jerry pointed out earlier, he has already kicked clear at this point and Frosted would be futilely chasing him," said Moss, but a mile time of 1:35.08 says otherwise. In my research, it is the fastest one mile time for the Travers bar none. Keep in mind that my research only goes back through the last 25 runnings, but no horse ran a faster first eight furlongs in at least that time, leading me to believe it was one of the fastest miles ever run in the historic race. Furthermore, in the last 12 editions of the Travers, the second fastest mile time is 1:36.38 -- a full 1.30 seconds slower than on Saturday. No wonder after putting away Frosted, American Pharoah was softened up enough to succumb to the late rush of Keen Ice. To get to this point of no return, American Pharoah threw down fractions of :24.28, :24.02, :23.18, :23.60. Meaning that the second half mile of the Travers was completed in :46.78. You simply do not see second half miles any faster than that in ten furlong races. Moss was right in saying that the first quarter was not the fastest, but after that, I would argue that his claim that American Pharoah had it relatively easy pace-wise, is off the mark.

Anyone who has watched horse racing more than a little bit, also realizes that the raw numbers of the pace are probably less important than the actual pressure the pacemaker is put under from competition during the earlier stages of a race. Unfortunately, for American Pharoah, not only did the fractional times get quicker after the first quarter, but so did the pressure applied by Frosted. The talented gray, and his fill-in rider, Jose Lezcano, took the race hard to the Pharoah. Of that, there can be no doubt. It makes you wonder had Frosted’s regular rider, Joel Rosario, not been injured a few races earlier, if the pressure and the ultimate outcome would have come out a little bit different.

Oh, and for those who want to use the lack of lifetime wins for Keen Ice as a means to somehow lessen the legacy of American Pharoah, consider the final time of this year’s signature event at Saratoga. The Belmont third, Haskell runner-up, and new Travers winner ran the second fastest edition in more than two decades. Only the Hall of Famer Point Given, with a final time of 2:01.40 ran faster than Keen Ice did on Saturday, and just barely at that. Keen Ice’s final time of 2:01.57 was less than one-fifth of a second from being the fastest Travers in the past 23 runnings. This may have not been vintage American Pharoah, but to say it was anything less than a brave performance would be selling him short.