SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. -- A capacity crowd at Saratoga Race Course watched the Triple Crown winner take the early lead Saturday and hold it for much of the race, but American Pharoah was overtaken right at the finish line of the 146th Travers Stakes.
The three-year-old Pharoah captured hearts around the country after becoming the 12th Triple Crown Winner, and the first since 1978.
American Pharoah was neck-in-neck with Frosted, who came in 3rd, as the horses came around the track, but Keen Ice was the horse that pulled the upset.
American Pharoah had won his last 8 races.
The questions now is what American Pharoah's future will be. His connections have said that if he takes a step back in any way, they would retire him.
"My gut says, if the horse showed me that he tailed off, that he is not the Pharoah that I know, then I have no question that I think i would retire him," said Ahmed Zayat, American Pharoah owner.
"He doesn't owe me anything, I'm the one who has to worry about him and that is the way it is going to be."
This was only the second race in American Pharoah's career that he has lost. The other was his first.
Only one Triple Crown winner has ever come to Saratoga and won the Travers. That was Whirlaway in 1941.
The winner, Keen Ice, ran in two of the three Triple Crown races this season, losing to Pharoah in both the Belmont and the Kentucky Derby. He came in second to Pharoah in the Haskel.
Jerry Crawford, part of the winning Donegal Racing team thanked the Zayat family for racing American Pharoah.
"They've been true sportsmen and it's because of them that we have this opportunity to stamp Donegal Racing on the map indelibly forever," Crawford said.
"American Pharoah has captured the attention of the nation and maybe even parts of the world. Because of what he accomplished. now that spotlight radiates on us. To the extent you call 50,000 people booing me radiation."
The horse is trained by Dale Romans and ridden by jockey Javier Castellano.