Brennan: With American Pharoah 'we could be talking about history' at Belmont

Christine Brennan | USA TODAY Sports

BALTIMORE – The horse racing gods were saying it was not meant to be. That had to be what the torrential rain and the wind and the lightning meant Saturday evening at the Preakness.

Not this year. Not you American Pharoah. No way.

Just 15 minutes before the Kentucky Derby winner was to embark on the second leg of a possible Triple Crown, a thunderstorm with all its fury swept directly over the top of Pimlico Race Course. The timing couldn't have been worse. The message was unmistakable. Poor horse racing. It just can't get a break.

But then it did. Turns out this message of doom and gloom was completely lost on the one living creature to whom it mattered most. American Pharoah ran right through it – the downpour, the mud, the doubts -- charging to the lead from almost the very beginning and never giving it back, winning the shortest of the Triple Crown races by a stunning seven lengths.

Here we go again, America. For the 14th time since Affirmed won the last Triple Crown in 1978, and the third time in the last four years, a horse is two-thirds of the way to winning his sport's greatest prize. Could this maybe, possibly, finally be the one?

"Sport without a star is not a sport," owner Ahmed Zayat said after the race. "The sign of a good horse is whatever is thrown in his face, he'll find a way to win. Now, God willing, he comes out of this race well, and we could be talking about history."

In some ways, we already are. It was a surreal evening in Baltimore. Storm clouds had been building throughout the afternoon, waiting, it turned out, to unload minutes before Preakness post time. The wind started whipping. The raucous infield crowd, numbering in the tens of thousands, was evacuated. (No small feat, and truth be told, more than a few stragglers remained.) The grandstands also were cleared.

How strange this was: Another Baltimore sporting event, another empty house. In this case, unlike the Orioles game a few weeks ago amid unrest in the city, everyone was still here, just huddled inside.

But that weather! If Dorothy's house had come swirling out of the sky and landed at the finish line, I don't think anyone would have been surprised.

While it was raining cats and dogs, out came the eight horses. American Pharoah drew the unlucky inside No. 1 post on Wednesday, a position from which only one of the last 54 Preakness winners had started. The fear was that to avoid getting boxed in, he would have to break out front early, which was a far cry from how he won the Derby, tracking Dortmund and Firing Line from the outside before sweeping past them in the stretch.

American Pharoah did break out of the pack almost immediately. The lead was his throughout, although it appeared he was going to be caught on the backstretch before he found another gear and poured it on.

"I pushed him to the front," jockey Victor Espinoza said. "As soon as I took the lead, that was it. He was very comfortable cruising around at a high speed. Each race, I learn something new about him, and it surprised me the way he runs. Today was an amazing race for him, but I couldn't really see how far I was in front because there was so much water in my eyes."

Espinoza also said his riding boots were full of water: "I was flooded in them." It was that kind of day, one that will not soon be forgotten.

"I've never been through anything like that," trainer Bob Baffert said. "That was crazy. I thought, I don't know what's going to happen with the thunder. These horses, I could tell they didn't like it when they get pelted like that. They showed a picture of the track (on TV), with like a river running on the rail, and I thought, He's got to run through that? All these things were going through my mind, and then, as they were turning down the backside, when I saw those ears go up, I thought, 'Oh, yeah.' That was a magical moment, watching him come down that stretch."

So here we are, three weeks away from the Belmont Stakes, three weeks that will be full of chatter and hype and hope from a sport that can use every bit of all of it. Fresh horses will show up to try to beat American Pharoah, just as they did to California Chrome last year.

"Everybody right now is sharpening their knives," Baffert said.

Not that he's worried, at least not yet.

"This is the only horse I've never had to talk people into how good he is," Baffert said. "I keep it low key. I don't want to jinx myself. He's done all the talking."