Todd Pletcher lines up 2010 Kentucky Derby contenders
Tony McCoy and Todd Pletcher might struggle to recognise each other in the street but both would identify with the striving to win the sport’s most elusive of glittering prizes.
McCoy finally won his personal battle for the Grand National three weeks ago, at the 15th attempt, and Pletcher heads to the twin spires of Churchill Downs, in the Bluegrass state of Kentucky, this weekend hoping to remove the monkey that has been living on his back for the last nine years.
Pletcher’s record of 0-24 in the Kentucky Derby, like that of McCoy in the National, appears all the harder to explain when set against the backdrop of his overall career. Four Eclipse awards as the champion trainer are backed up by a list of champions that include Ashado, English Channel, Speighstown, Fleet Indian, Wait a While, Lawyer Ron, and Left Bank.
In 2005, Pletcher won 10 Grade One races, the following season he broke the all-time earnings record of $19,147,129 - set in 2003 by Bobby Frankel – and, in 2007, Pletcher’s Rag To Riches became the first filly since 1905 to win the Belmont Stakes, third leg of the Triple Crown, when she beat Curlin in an epic finish.
However, the Kentucky Derby has been all rags and no sign of riches for Pletcher. Three years ago he saddled five starters, equalling the Derby record, but could only manage a sixth-place finish with Circular Quay. Only Wayne Lukas and d**k Thompson have saddled more runners in the Derby than Pletcher, but each of them have a record of four victories in the race they call “the Run for the Roses”. Thus far Pletcher has only a large thorn in his flesh.
Most of Pletcher’s runners have been long shots, with his two best finishes coming with Invisible Ink and Bluegrass Cat and, who were second in 2001 and 2006, respectively, at odds of 55-1 and 30-1, a fact that has never been lost on the man himself. “There's only one Derby winner," Pletcher once said. "You show up with six, 10, 12. If you don't have the right one, it doesn't matter.”
This year he could have been saddling as many as seven runners for the race, having had the best of prep runs. He had won several of the major Derby trials - the Louisiana Derby, Fountain of Youth, Risen Star, El Camino Real Derby, the Sam F Davis, and the Wood Memorial – and it was Eskendereya’s easy win in the Wood that had most form students believing that this would be Pletcher’s year.
Eskendereya was the early-market favourite for the Derby until he was scratched on Sunday and quickly joined on the sidelines by Rule, the winner of the Sam F Davis Stakes.
Pletcher could be forgiven for believing that there is a rule which says that he cannot win the Derby but he takes a different view. “I don’t know if I get more tired of ‘he’s definitely going to win the Derby – we just don’t know when’ or the ‘0-24’,” he said. “In my eyes we’re 0-nine Derbys, with two seconds, a third and a fourth. It’s not a horrible record when you look at it in that perspective but, until we win one, we’ll have to answer it.”
If there are any answers to be provided from the four runners that Pletcher may get to the starting gate they could come from Mission Impazible, who won the Louisiana Derby, or the filly Devil May Care, who has been switched from a run in the Kentucky Oaks on Friday. His other runners are Super Saver, Discreetly Mine and Interactif, who has yet to be confirmed.
Devil May Care, who looks set to be ridden by Pletcher's first-choice rider John Velazquez, won the Grade One Frizette Stakes, on dirt at Belmont Park, last October before failing on the synthetic surface at Santa Anita in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies, when she finished 11th of 12.
The filly was little better in her first run of this season, at Fair Grounds in February, but she was the easy winner of the Grade Two Bonnie Miss Stakes over nine furlongs on the dirt at Gulfstream Park last month - a performance that would have made her a leading fancy for the Kentucky Oaks.
The closest that Pletcher has got to a Derby winner is when he was assistant to Lukas in the days when Thunder Gulch won in 1995 and his former mentor is staunch in the trainer’s defence. "You have to realize there are 40,000 foals born every year and to get five in at that level is pretty darn impressive," Lukas said. "The problem is, he needs to win one and, when the right horse comes along, he will. It's not fair when people keep bringing up the 0-24."
Only three fillies have won the Kentucky Derby in 135 runnings of the race - Regret (1915), Genuine Risk (1980) and Winning Colors (1988) – but, quoted by the Bloodhorse, Pletcher said: "I think she fits very well [in the Derby]. If you look at her Bonnie Miss, where she ran greenly after making the lead and still ran faster than the Florida Derby two races later, she's shown her races are competitive with the colts. I've had the opportunity to train her against the colts and she's done very well."
A victory in the Kentucky Derby would certainly prove that Pletcher is the real McCoy.
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