AMERICAN Pharoah may have stumbled at the start, but he never looked back, galloping gate-to-wire to win the eight and a half furlong $750,000 Grade 2 Rebel Stakes by six and a quarter lengths in his 2015 debut last Saturday at Oaklawn Park.

The Eclipse Champion two-year-old male made a long-awaited return to the races on a rainy Arkansas day. Although sent off the 2/5 favourite, many still doubted whether he would live up to his much-hyped juvenile form and win his three-year-old debut over a track rated ‘sloppy’.