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Our American Stories

How the Triple Crown Brought a Father and Son Together Again

Our American Stories

iHeartPodcasts

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.6817 Ratings

🗓️ 17 March 2026

⏱️ 8 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On this episode of Our American Stories, for thirty-seven years, no horse won the Triple Crown. Then, in 2015, American Pharoah finally broke the drought and gave horse racing one of its biggest moments in a generation.

For former media executive Gary Ginsberg, that win brought back something more personal. Watching the Triple Crown races returned him to the Sundays he spent at the track with his father, where the horses, the racing form, and the rhythm of the day became part of their relationship. Here's Gary with his moving story.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

This is an I-Heart podcast.

0:02.6

Guaranteed Human.

0:14.2

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, a show where America is the star and the American people. Up next, a story from

0:23.2

Gary Ginsburg, a retired executive who worked at such companies as Time Warner and News Corp, a big guy

0:30.6

in the media business. He's here to share how the 37-year-old triple crown drought that was broken in

0:37.0

2015 brought with it a flood of

0:39.9

memories of Sundays at the race track with his father. Here's Gary Ginsburg.

0:46.2

And they're into the stretch. An American Farrow makes us run for glory as they come into the final

0:52.5

for a long. And here it is, the 37 year wait is over.

0:57.0

American Pharaoh is finally the one.

1:00.0

American Pharaoh has won the Triple Ground!

1:04.0

When American Pharaoh crossed the finish line

1:08.0

on Belmont Stakes on June 6, 2015, becoming the first

1:12.9

Triple Crown winner in 37 years, I cried.

1:17.3

After talking with friends who also watched the race, most of us men in our 50s and 60s,

1:23.0

I discovered I was not alone.

1:25.2

Many of us were overcome by emotion and, as it turns out, mostly

1:29.2

for the same reason. We were thinking about our dads.

1:37.9

For a generation of American men born during the Great Depression, racing was much more

1:43.3

than a five-week diversion from

1:44.6

the first Saturday May to the first Saturday in June. It was an obsession. And the obsession

1:50.4

was shared with us, their children, so that in many cases, horse racing came to define the

...

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