Pletcher & the Derby
 

Essential reading for anyone wanting to bash Pletcher's Derby record

Not sure I agree with this report on Pletcher. The key piece missing here is how DOMINANT his horses have been in many of the prep races. His 3 year olds that make the Derby OFTEN vastly underperform to their preps.

I only bash his record of getting his horses TO the Derby. 31 seems like a lot, but so many promising horses have been ruined along the way.

Interesting stats.

But did you just call your own blog post "Essential reading"?

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I agree Cj. Just going over the list of horses he ran in the derby, i would expect a low win %. It's the stock he gets every year and the quality of good horses that never make the race is what is intriguing to me.

Like Charlie Whittingham use to say "Horses are like strawberries they go bad overnight!"

Especially if you don't handle them correctly.

Who could forget Pletcher's epic three year streak of finishing last? If only Bandini had finished behind High Limit in 2005, then he could have made it four. What were the odds of him finishing last in 3 straight years?

What is also glossed over is that Pletcher has a grand total of 3 in the money finishes during the stretch that was highlighted.

I am not of the opinion that the Derby is the "be all, end all" of thoroughbred racing. However, Pletcher has dramatically underperformed with both the horses who made the race and the scores of them who showed promise at one point and never contested it.

Ever notice his young horses seem to vanish into oblivion after Todd tells a few falsehoods about future plans? Who was the horse from last year that was being pointed to the Donn, then nothing? El Padrino, yeah, that is him.

He did manage to keep Flower Alley together through the BC one year, but that horse came back as a shell of his former self and didn't even have a reported injury.

A good deal of his horses had potential but were not quite Derby material Try to tell an owner with alot of cash and Derby fever , that their horse is over his head .

It's unfortunate , young fast horses get injured , take bad steps and the
more you have , the more setbacks you're going to see .

I don't know how many horses Sid Watters had in his barn back in the day .
He had one that stood out and tore up the track .

Hoist The Flag , he took a very bad step and ended his career , almost his life . I think it's unfortunate for Todd , but relative considering how large his stable is .

I think it goes way beyond just being unfortunate. We are all well aware how large his stable is. He just can't seem to keep a horse together for any length of time.

does Pletcher train any horses older than 3?

Obvious answer...not for long!

He is 2-49 in Triple Crown races overall. In the last five years, he has had ONE horse win a Grade I as a 2YO and then another as a 3YO while under his care. That was Devil May Care, who unfortunately died of a mysterious liver ailment just months later.

He has had ONE 4YO win a Grade I who won one as a 3YO in the last five years. That was Stay Thirsty, who scored in the Cigar Mile by a desperate nose last November.

In his entire history of training, Pletcher has 3 wins in BC races with horses 3YO and up and only two older horses. The funny thing is one of those horses (Speightstown) wasn't in his care until his 5YO season.

How about some of his impressive 2YO debut winners at Saratoga that ended up completely falling apart? Skylord, Archwarrior, Micromanage, Unabashed, Tap For Luck, Captain Webb, HUnt Crossing, Crazy Party, Curlinello, Summer Laugh, Slamarama, Excited. They all ended up injured or completely ineffective. I excluded Giant Surprise, who ran once and subsequently broke down.

There are a whole pile of them from Gulfstream as well. It's really uncanny. In the last five years at Gulfstream, PLetcher is 32% with a $1.88 ROI in graded stakes races. Everywhere else? A whopping 18% with a $1.51 ROI.