Well, say what you want and, of course, in the blogosphere, the public has already said plenty. American Pharoah isn’t Secretariat, the 1973 Triple Crown winner. The field the Pharoah ran against in the Belmont Stakes Saturday, D-Day, was weak. Blah, blah, blah.

But you know what? You play the hand you’re dealt. American Pharoah led wire-to-wire, as did the last horse to win the Triple Crown before him, my beloved Affirmed, in 1978. AP ran the Belmont faster than Affirmed and Seattle Slew, who won the Triple Crown in 1977. He did whatever was asked of him, poor baby, running with his spongy earplugs, because the crowd noise rattles him. In doing so, he gave us a moment in history. That’s what great athletes do. They give us a moment in time in which we can say “I was there when” or “I remember when,” a moment that unites us with those we’ll never know.

I was still a teenager in the golden age of the 1970s. I remember Secretariat, the shy superhorse; Slew, dark and darkly tempered; and Affirmed, laidback and as smart as, well, a whip. Then came 1979 and Spectacular Bid, who should’ve made it three Triple Crowns in a row. He stepped on a pin in the barn at the Belmont. The jockey mishandled him. Whatever. He finished second. And that was the beginning of 37 years of mediocrity, shock, missteps and tragedy. Remember Barbaro false-starting and then breaking his right hind leg out of the starting gate at the Preakness in 2006? Ultimately, he developed laminitis and had to be put down. God, that was so horrible. Barbaro had Triple Crown winner written all him. But he was more than a potential trifecta champ. (Remember the kids sending him get-well cards?) They all are.

Not every Triple Crown loser is such a great loss. I never cottoned to Smarty Jones, who lost out to Birdstone in the Belmont in 2004. Who names a colt after a woman? Bad luck, that.

So many missed opportunities. Not every great horse is a Triple Crown champion. Man o’ War – maybe the greatest racehorse America ever produced and the legendary ancestor of many great American steeds, including the pairs of rivals War Admiral and Seabiscuit, and Affirmed and Alydar – never entered the Kentucky Derby. (His owner, August Belmont Jr. – son of the man for whom the Belmont Stakes is named – didn’t like racing in Kentucky and thought Man, a star of the World War I era, was too young.)

Then there was Native Dancer, the Vanderbilt-owned “Gray Ghost,” who electrified early TV audiences and was the grandfather of Alydar, the only horse to finish second in all three Triple Crown races, and the great-grandfather of Affirmed. The only race the Dancer lost was the 1953 Kentucky Derby (to Dark Star). As is often the case, the jockey, the hapless Eric Guerin, got the blame. “He took that colt everywhere on the track except the ladies' room," one sportswriter remarked famously.

Yes, not every great horse is destined to be a Triple Crown champ. But every Triple Crown champ is a great horse. Has to be. And now all of us will remember where we were when the Pharoah ended the 37-year drought and became one with Sir Barton (1919), Gallant Fox (1930), Omaha (1935), War Admiral (1937), Whirlaway (1941), Count Fleet (1943), Assault (1946), Citation (1948), Secretariat (1973), Seattle Slew (1977) and Affirmed (1978).

American Pharoah (2015) – he of the gentle spirit, short tail, misspelled name and American-Middle Eastern backstory – is a horse for our time.

And now for all time.