Freshening for ‘Pharoah’

Triple Crown winner American Pharoah (Pioneerof the Nile) returned to his home base at Santa Anita and will be given a well deserved freshening as trainer Bob Baffert plots out the rest of his sophomore campaign. 

Several different races have been discussed for the Zayat Stable homebred’s next start, including the GI Haskell Invitational S., GI Travers S. and GII Jim Dandy S., but Baffert said for now the colt will get some down time from both racing and his many public appearances. 

“It was nice to see the horse back, but I can tell he was a little bit tired from being shown so much, so now that he’s here, we need to tighten up the show circuit a little bit,” the Hall of Fame conditioner said. “He probably needs a little bit of freshening, because this wears on him. When he was in Kentucky, they were bringing him out a lot and showing him to people, sharing him with everybody. But now that he’s here, it’s a different life. He handles it well because he’s so smart.”

American Pharoah will still make his already scheduled public appearance on GI Gold Cup at Santa Anita day June 27.