By MELISSA HART
Truth from the Trenches 

I had chills as I watched American Pharoah round the last turn and head for home.

As he pulled away from Frosted I couldn’t believe in a matter of seconds, I would watch a horse win the Triple Crown.

I was elated, I was standing in my living room clapping and cheering … it was odd, but I couldn’t help but become emotional along with the thousands of other race fans at Belmont Park on Long Island. One commentator described the extended roar of the crowd as deafening.

As Victor Espinoza paraded American Pharoah in front of the crowd for a victory lap, the entire grandstand of people cheered endlessly for their hero. Yes, some of them won a lot of money, but it was more than a jingle in their pocket that made them stand to their feet and clap for a Bay-colored equine.

Social media lighted up with congratulatory comments for the Triple Crown winner, and the lead story for three days on "SportsCenter" was all about American Pharoah breaking the 37-year drought of "The Test of the Champion." Countless interviews, thousands of race replays and unlimited photos of every angle of this sweet moment in time for horse racing has canvassed the country.

You might say we are obsessed with this champion. We can’t get enough insider information about the personality of this horse, the insight of his jockey and the training talents of his trainer. We want details of what he eats, how hard he works and what kind of strange quirks he may have.

We want a romantic story of the unlikely to win, the Cinderella story, the colt no one wanted to pick. But as Bob Baffert puts it: "There’s something about this horse I’ve never felt with another horse. He’s just like, when you see him, you just love to see him because not only is he a sweet horse, but he carries a certain … he’s a very noble horse."

Baffert also said American Pharoah has a lot of "swagger" and he believed the other horses in the paddock knew it. On the morning of the race American Pharoah was posing in the paddock before they took him to the receiving barn and on to the race.

Baffert said he knew that morning it was going to be a good day for this horse … and it was.

Like rallying behind Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson or the 1980 United States Olympic Hockey Team, they are special athletes and cannot be denied the accolades they have received. When they were counted on to win, they won.

When people looked to them to play their best, they did. When they were in a clutch moment, they pulled through and made the impossible happen. American Pharoah did that for America on June 6. No team. No drugs. No deflated footballs – just a horse that loves to run and a race he won effortlessly.

Everyone was pulling for him; even the competing horse owners couldn’t deny their desire to see American Pharoah win the Triple Crown. He won and so did all of America as we enjoyed watching a four-legged, Bay-colored equine run into history, effortlessly and with nobility and swagger.

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments for Melissa Hart may write to her in care of this publication.