Los Angeles (IANS) Musician Richie Sambora is such a fan of Triple Crown winner American Pharoah that he offered up a song to the champion thoroughbred.
The singer, songwriter and guitarist, who is a diehard horse race fan, was unable to attend June’s Belmont Stakes, where American Pharoah became the first horse to win the Triple Crown in more than three decades.
The Zayat family, who owns American Pharoah had invited Sambora to join them at Belmont after hearing about his support on his last big races.
“It was my daughter Ava’s graduation in California that same afternoon – I couldn’t go. But I did watch it!,” Sambora told people.com.
Earlier this month, Sambora travelled to Del Mar, California, to meet up with the Zayats, their team and to meet the horse.
When Sambora met the horse, kissing him on the nose, he began talking to the champion’s trainer Bob Baffert.
“He said, ‘This horse needs a song’,” recalled Sambora.
“I said, ‘I don’t need to write one. I got a sticky hit you’re looking for on my up and coming album, at the end of the year’,” he said.
The song is aptly called “Rise”.
“I thought this song was so perfect because over the years, I have been following the attempts of so many horses to take the illusive Triple Crown,” he said.
The lyrics, he said are “heavy and are associated with victory by rising above all obstacles”.