Foaled in Lexington, Kentucky on February 2, 2012, American Pharoah was bred and owned by Zayat Stables, LLC, under the auspices of Egyptian-American businessman Ahmed Zayat, and trained by Bob Baffert. He was ridden on all bar one of his 11 starts by Victor Espinoza, winning nine of them.
American Pharoah was a beaten favourite on his debut in a maiden special weight race over 6½ furlongs at Del Mar on August 9, 2014, when ridden for the one and only time by Martin Garcia. However, the son of Pioneerof The Nile showed the benefit of that experience making all to win the Grade 1 Del Mar Futurity, over 7 furlongs, and the Grade 1 FrontRunner Stakes, over 8½ furlongs at Santa Anita, on his next two starts. Indeed, those two taking victories, by 4¾ lengths and 3¼ lengths respectively, were sufficient to make him Champion Two-Year-Old Male Horse at the Eclipse Awards.
American Pharoah began his three-year-old campaign with wide-margin victories in the Rebel Stakes and Arkansas Derby, both at Oaklawn Park, as the result of which he was sent off favourite for the first of the Triple Crown races, the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs, on the first Saturday in May. He justified market confidence in the ‘Run for the Roses’, staying on strongly in the closing stages to beat Firing Line by a length, and just over a month later became the twelfth horse in history to complete the Triple Crown. He readily won the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico by 7 lengths and the Belmont Stakes at Belmont Park by 5½ lengths, before coasting home, at long odds-on, in the Haskell Invitational Stakes at Monmouth Park to extend his winning streak to eight races.
Keen Ice, runner-up at Monmouth Park, surprisingly reversed the form in the Travers Stakes at Saratoga in late August, but American Pharoah was not quite finished yet. On October 31, 2015, he made all for an easy, 6½-length victory in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Keeneland, thereby becoming the first horse to win the modern Grand Slam.