American Pharaoh's Amazing Race

This post and the photographs relate to the win at the Preakness (May 17); for my post on the Belmont victory (June 6), see this link.
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Hereafter American Pharaoh's name deserves to be correctly spelled.  That horse didn't just win the Preakness in rain and mud. He won in a storm.  Thunder boomed, a lightning bolt hurled to earth just at post time, the wind raged, torrential rain blew in sheets almost blinding his jockey.

But one would've thought American Pharaoh was out for a trot on a sunny day. And he started from the worst post position in the field, #1, where he could have easily been cut off.  So this isn't a mere thoroughbred or race horse. This is the kind of horse that won battles for his mount.

The pack could never come close except for a brief stretch when jockey Victor Espinoza pulled him in a bit to give him a little breather. The horse had made fantastic speed on the muddy track to prevent another horse, Mr Z, from getting ideas about being a front runner.  He practically flew the track.

American Pharaoh won by 7 lengths even with the breather. This is what the finish looked like, the competition not even in sight:

Pegasus, the winged war horse of Greek myth, couldn't have run it better.

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