Todd Pletcher
Todd Pletcher
Todd Pletcheris a leading American thoroughbred horse trainer. He has won four consecutive Eclipse Awards as outstanding Trainer of the Year while topping the leader board in purse earnings in 2004, 2005, and 2006. His horse Super Saver won the 2010 Kentucky Derby, the first of his 24 horses entered in his career to win the Run for the Roses. He also won the 2007 Belmont Stakes with filly Rags to Riches and the 2013 Belmont Stakes with Palace Malice...
ProfessionOther
Date of Birth26 June 1967
consistent durable gave horse type
Pollard was tough, durable and consistent -- a real warrior, the type of horse everyone would want to own. He gave you everything he had.
felt focused horse
I felt like if we can get this horse straightened away and focused and he matures, then he can be any kind of horse.
against eighth horse mile order potential quarter race run stretch surprised
What this race will tell us is if we have the potential to stretch him out to a mile and an eighth or a mile and a quarter against the very best. I would be surprised if he didn't run well at a mile and a sixteenth. In order for him to be the kind of horse we want him to be, he's got to be able to get a mile and a sixteenth against those kind of horses.
derby florida forward horses kentucky needed showing step
They are bubble-type horses that need to step forward and have a big showing in the Florida Derby to step into the Kentucky Derby picture. They did what they needed to do to get to this point.
exactly fresh horse ran
He was a fresh horse and ran exactly the way we wanted him to.
best certainly horse lead letting likely maybe pace run scenario somebody wants
He can run from off the pace if we need to do that, but maybe letting him be a free-running horse is his best style. We're certainly not going to try to take him off the pace. The most likely scenario is he's going to be on the lead, but if somebody else wants the lead then that's fine, too.
asked confidence gets horses ride seven six total
He gets on six or seven horses a day and joked about a comeback. He asked to ride this one, and I have total confidence in him.
continued develop fall handicap horse last moving races ran top toward
He ran much-improved races last fall and has continued to develop physically. They stamped him as a horse moving toward the top of the handicap division.
case champion himself horse position puts strong win
If he were to win the Sprint, I think he puts himself in position to make a strong case for not only horse of the year, but champion three-year-old.
carrying dangerous forward horse key relax speed
He's a pretty forward horse and the key is just really if they can relax just enough to make their speed dangerous and keep carrying it.
anyone bluegrass came cat comparison derby entry gone good hard horse johnny kentucky knows mile perfect stay training trains works
I don't want to get in the way of Johnny with his Kentucky Derby mounts. This was a particularly hard decision, because anyone who works or trains or is around Keyed Entry knows how good he is. You'd want to stay with a horse like that as long as possible. He's undefeated. He's training super. In a perfect world, Keyed Entry would already have gone two turns, so Johnny could have made a better comparison with Bluegrass Cat. Bluegrass Cat already has been a mile and an eighth, and he's already been a mile and a sixteenth this year. I think it came down to that.
alley dandy flower home hoped jim next performance
Everything unfolded the way we thought it would and the way we hoped it would. This was a home run. The Jim Dandy was the kind of performance that propelled Flower Alley to the next level.
blue consistent decided grass hopefully likes train worked
I thought he worked real well. I think he really likes this track. We decided to train here because if you get rain, it's a little more consistent surface. And hopefully after the Blue Grass he'll be back here.
met point
We'll point for the Met Mile. That's been the plan.