Running Three
Shortly after his Bandini had won the Blue Grass Stakes two weeks ago, trainer Todd Pletcher was asked if he’d ever win the Kentucky Derby.
Wayne Lukas, once Pletcher’s mentor, used to get a similar question, until Lukas, after running 12 horses, finally won his first of four Derbies with Winning Colors in 1988.
Pletcher has started nine horses in four of the last five Derbies, two of them hitting the board, but he seemed surprised by the question.
“I’m only 37 years old, you know,” he said. “Some make it, and some don’t. But it’s not like there won’t be other years if I don’t do it this time.”
Pletcher ran four horses in his first Derby, in 2000, but his chances will be better when he saddles three colts in the 131st Derby on Saturday.
All of them will run at Churchill Downs off strong prep races: Bandini’s Blue Grass win came against what was arguably the best field of 3-year-olds on the same track this year, Coin Silver punched his Derby ticket with a win in the Lexington Stakes at nearby Keeneland a week ago and Flower Alley was second in the Arkansas Derby, albeit eight lengths behind Afleet Alex, who will be either the second or third choice on Saturday.
“It’s a number game,” Pletcher said, sounding a little like Lukas. “The more good horses you have, the better your chances.”
Since leaving Lukas in December 1995, after a 6 1/2 -year stint in which he rose to top assistant, Pletcher’s numbers have increased to the point where he has close to 200 horses in training. He started out with a handful, and not a classy handful at that, but when his ship came in last year, it was the size of the Queen Mary. Pletcher’s outfit led the country with $17.5 million in purses, he won his first two Breeders’ Cup races and he was voted an Eclipse award as outstanding trainer.
Still missing, however, is a Triple Crown win, and a Derby victory in particular.
“It’s one race you want to win, any trainer will tell you that,” Pletcher said. “But I don’t think our operation has tunnel vision toward the Derby. On May 8, no matter what’s happened the day before, I’ll get up and go to Belmont Park to get ready for that meet. It’s like what somebody said about Roy Williams, after he finally won an NCAA basketball title [with North Carolina]. After the title game, he was no better coach than he’d been two and a half hours earlier.”
One of Pletcher’s best Derby training jobs didn’t land him in the winner’s circle here, but he’s still proud of Invisible Ink’s second-place finish, at 55-1, to Monarchos in 2001. As a 2-year-old, the son of Thunder Gulch, the 1995 Derby winner whom Pletcher had helped Lukas train, had a near-fatal reaction to Butazolidin, an anti-inflammatory drug. He lost 400 pounds, almost half his weight, and the company that insured him for $200,000 gave Invisible Ink’s owner, John Fort, permission to put him down.
But Invisible Ink not only recovered, he arrived at Pletcher’s Belmont barn that fall and broke his maiden in November.
Early in 2001, Invisible Ink put together solid allowance wins in Florida but seemed overmatched when Pletcher ran him in the Florida Derby and the Blue Grass. Running in the Kentucky Derby looked to be a stretch, yet Invisible Ink landed second money, and Monarchos ran the second-fastest 1 1/4 miles in Derby history -- 1:59 4/5 -- to beat him.
Not surprisingly, Invisible Ink was ridden by John Velazquez, who has been Pletcher’s go-to jockey for several years. In January, the two horsemen were a fitting team on the stage of a Beverly Hills hotel, Pletcher’s winning the 2004 Eclipse for trainers and Velazquez’s accepting the trophy for best jockey. This year, they are out to win those awards again: Through Thursday, Pletcher was atop the trainers’ money list with $5.1 million and Velazquez, with $7.9 million in purses, has ridden horses who have earned almost twice as much as the next jockey on the list.
Like Pletcher, Velazquez has also never won a Derby, out of seven mounts, but he’ll have his best chance with Bandini. The son of Fusaichi Pegasus, the 2000 Derby winner, broke his maiden in January, the first time Velazquez rode him, and since then the only loss they’ve suffered together was a second against High Fly, the eventual Florida Derby winner, in the Fountain of Youth Stakes.
After the Blue Grass, Velazquez could have taken the mount on Afleet Alex, the Arkansas Derby winner, but there was really no choice.
“Todd and I have done so well together,” Velazquez said. “His race [in the Blue Grass] was so much better than what he showed in the Fountain of Youth. He’s always shown speed, and he’s learning, race by race. If he put his mind to it, I think we’ve got the best horse for the Derby.”
Velazquez, born in Carolina, Puerto Rico -- the birthplace of Roberto Clemente -- began riding in New York, under the tutelage of Angel Cordero, in 1990.
“I was working for [Lukas] in New York then, just after Johnny had lost his bug [apprenticeship],” Pletcher said. “All of us knew he had a great future, that he wasn’t just going to be a flash in the pan.
“Then when I went out on my own, I was using Jerry Bailey and Mike Smith a lot, but Jerry was riding many of [trainer] Bill Mott’s horses, and Mike was hooked up with Shug McGaughey, so you couldn’t get those guys all the time. I started going to Johnny more and more, and it just took off from there. You couldn’t have found a better rider. He’s the best in the country now.”
The perennially effervescent Cordero, who has won the Kentucky Derby with Cannonade, Bold Forbes and Spend A Buck, has been Velazquez’s agent, but at 62 he has temporarily set those duties aside to gallop horses for Pletcher at Churchill Downs.
“It’s good to have Angel around,” Pletcher said. “He lightens things up around the barn. He’s got all those old Bold Forbes stories to tell.”
And by Saturday, maybe some of Cordero’s Derby magic will have rubbed off.
*
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
Pletcher File
Todd Pletcher is looking to start three horses in the Kentucky Derby on Saturday. Post time is 3 p.m. PDT on Ch. 4:
* Age: 37
* Residence: Garden City, N.Y.
* Top wins: Ashado (2004 Kentucky Oaks, Breeders’ Cup Distaff); Bandini (2005 Blue Grass); Left Bank (2002 Whitney Handicap); Speightstown (2004 Breeders’ Cup Sprint).
* Derby record: 0 for 9. Best finish, second (Invisible Ink, 2001).
* Accomplishments: 2004 Eclipse award as nation’s outstanding trainer ... saddled four starters in his first Derby (2000).
* How he got started: Father, J.J., trained quarter horses and thoroughbreds and encouraged son to become trainer.
*
Run for the Roses
Top contenders for the Kentucky Derby, to be run Saturday at 3 p.m. PDT on Ch. 4:
*--* HORSE TRAINER Afleet Alex Tim Ritchey Andromeda’s Hero Nick Zito Bandini Todd Pletcher Bellamy Road Nick Zito Buzzards Bay Jeff Mullins Closing Argument Kiaran McLaughlin Coin Silver Todd Pletcher Consolidator Wayne Lukas Don’t Get Mad Ron Ellis Flower Alley Todd Pletcher Giacomo John Shirreffs Going Wild Wayne Lukas Greater Good Robert Holthus Greeley’s Galaxy Warren Stute High Fly Nick Zito High Limit Bobby Frankel Noble Causeway Nick Zito Sort It Out Bob Baffert Spanish Chestnut Patrick Biancone Sun King Nick Zito Wilko Craig Dollase
*--*
