He is the CEO of Zayat Stables, LLC, a Thoroughbred horse racing business which bred and owns the 2015 Triple Crown winner American Pharoah.

Zayat was born in Cairo, Egypt to a wealthy family, and grew up in an ethnically diverse (majority Jewish) neighborhood where he learned to ride horses.

At age 18, he moved to the United States where he attended college and ultimately obtained a master's degree in business and public health from Boston University.

After a brief career in commercial real estate in New York City, he returned to Egypt, and for about a decade ran the Al-Ahram Beverages Company, which he owned as part of an investment group.

Upon returning to the United States for good in 2007, he made his racing stables his full-time occupation, working with his son, Justin, to build the business.

Their eldest son, Justin, helps run the Zayat Stables operation, and their youngest, Emma, inspired the name of Littleprincessemma, the dam of American Pharoah.

Ahmed Zayat was born in Egypt in 1962 to an affluent family and grew up in an ethnically diverse neighborhood in the Cairo suburb of Maadi.

[2] Zayat competed in show jumping during his early teens,[8] winning national titles as a child in the under-12 and under-14 age divisions.

"[11] Zayat returned to Egypt in 1995 and formed an investment group,[9] which purchased the Al-Ahram Beverages Company in 1997, outbidding Anheuser-Busch and Heineken International.

[5][8] Al-Ahram had been owned by the Egyptian government and Zayat had helped find American investors to take over government-owned businesses that had been nationalized by Gamal Abdel Nasser back in the 1950s.

[5] The company was modernized from a run-down operation to a publicly traded business that sold in 2002 to Heineken International for $280 million, more than three times its pre-acquisition valuation, in what was then the largest corporate buyout in Egyptian history.

Zayat also had difficulty obtaining the name from the Jockey Club, as it had been reserved by Earle I. Mack, who owned race horses and also happened to be the chairman of the board of Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, .

[10] The racing stock have been in training with multiple trainers including Bob Baffert, Mark Casse, D. Wayne Lukas, Todd Pletcher, Dale Romans and others.

On the Sunday prior to the Derby, Eskendereya was withdrawn from the race and subsequently retired to stud due to a soft tissue injury that would have taken at least a year to heal.

[25] Paynter went on to win the Grade I Haskell Invitational but shortly thereafter developed near-fatal complications from colitis and laminitis.

Zayat authorized the highest quality of care for the horse, and following abdominal surgery and several months of rehabilitation, Paynter successfully returned to racing in 2013.

[26] After Zayat and his son Justin began making regular social media updates on Twitter with the hashtag #PowerUpPaynter, the horse developed a significant fan base,[27] and received hundreds of get well cards, many from children.

Stating that Fifth Third was "reneging on its promises,"[35] Zayat filed a countersuit in April 2010, alleging the bank engaged in deceptive and predatory lending practices.

[34] When he thought the bank was willing to restructure its loans, Zayat withdrew 67 horses he intended to sell at Keeneland's 2009 September and November sales and instead purchased 24 more yearlings.

[35] He had also paid Fifth Third $4.3 million from the proceeds of the sale of breeding rights to Zensational, all of which left him low on cash when the bank called in its loans.

[36] To settle his debts with Fifth Third, he agreed to annual payments based on a percentage of horse sales and proceeds from claiming races.

While the selling percentage and price were confidential, Zayat Stables' reported income to the bankruptcy court for the month the deal closed was $7.5 million.

[32] In an unrelated case, Zayat was mentioned in a 2013 lawsuit between Freehold Raceway and the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority.

His suit alleged breach of contract, claiming that Zayat failed to pay off a $1.65 million line of credit in 2004.

Zayat's lawyer described the suit as "a meritless claim",[32] filed a motion to dismiss in 2015 alleging lack of evidence,[43] and argued that the statute of limitations of six years had run.

[51][52] In a related matter, June 1, 2015, days before American Pharoah was to run in the 2015 Belmont Stakes, the New York Times reported that Rubinsky's lawyer, Joseph Bainton, filed a $10-million libel suit against Zayat for comments to the press, including the characterization of Rubinsky's other lawsuit as "extortion, a fraud and blackmail.

[54] In a post-race press conference after winning the 2015 Belmont Stakes, Zayat stated that he was so anxious about American Pharoah's upcoming race that he neglected to bet on anything.