Racing Career: As one of America's most prolific stakes-winning trainers, Todd Pletcher finally earned the most coveted win missing from his resume in 2010 when Super Saver rebounded from a second-place finish in the Arkansas Derby to capture the Kentucky Derby. Despite winning eight different Kentucky Derby preps with six different horses, Pletcher's much talked about 0 for 24 record seemed to be in danger of climbing when early Derby favorite Eskendereya, winner of the Fountain of Youth (G1), Florida Derby (G1) and Wood Memorial (G1), had to be declared from the race with an injury, but the WinStar Farm color-bearer came through for the stable under a patented rail-skimming ride from jockey Calvin Borel ... Other top sophomores in the Pletcher barn this year are Exhi, winner of the Coolmore Lexington Stakes (G2) and the filly Devil May Care, who came back from a 10th-place finish in the Kentucky Derby to take the Mother Goose Stakes (G1) and Coaching Club of America Oaks (G1) ... In addition to his three-year-olds, Pletcher is also enjoying considerable success with older horses Quality Road and Life at Ten ... Quality Road, a leading sophomore in 2009, returned in '10 and started the year with three straight victories in the Hal's Hope (G3), Donn Handicap (G1) and Met Mile (G1) before a narrow loss to Blame in the Whitney Handicap (G1) at Saratoga in August ... Life at Ten won the Ogden Phipps (G1) and Delaware (G1) Handicaps ... Other graded stakes winners for Pletcher in 2010 include Bribon (FR), Phola, Hour Glass and Interactif ... By Pletcher's standards, had a slow 2009 when he only won three Grade I races: the Secretariat Stakes with Take the Points, the Princess Rooney with Game Face and the Frizette with Devil May Care ... Among the other highlights for him in '09 were when Dunkirk, a $3.7 million yearling purchase rebounded from an 11th-place finish in the Kentucky Derby to finish second in the Belmont Stakes and acquiring Quality Road from trainer Jimmy Jerkens. Ironically, Quality Road had defeated Dunkirk in the Florida Derby earlier in the year ... Pletcher started 2008 by collecting his 2,000th career win on January 13 with On the Vig and finished the year as the second-leading trainer, behind Steve Asmussen, with 208 wins from 1090 starts and $13,411784,586 in earnings ... Among his best horses in 2008 were Fairbanks, Game Face, Cowboy Cal, Unbridled Belle and Wait A While ... Pletcher earned his fourth consecutive Eclipse Award as Outstanding Trainer in 2007, the third trainer to accomplish that feat, joining Bobby Frankel (2000-2003) and Laz Barrera (1976-79). During 2007, he won his first Classic race with the filly Rags to Riches in the Belmont Stakes, won his third Breeders’ Cup race with English Channel in the Turf, trained three Eclipse Award Champions – Rags to Riches (Three-Year-Old Filly), English Channel (Turf Horse) and Lawyer Ron (Older Male), and won Grade Is with six other horses … Pletcher also shattered his own record from 2006 when he ended the year with $28,576,097 in earnings. In 2006, his stable earned $26,820,243 ... In 2004, Pletcher won his first two Breeders' Cup races with Ashado (Distaff) and Speightstown (Sprint), which helped him lead the nation in earnings with $17,511,923 and receive his first Eclipse Award as outstanding trainer … Ashado and Speightstown were both voted the champions of their divisions ... With 47 individual stakes winners in 2005, Pletcher became the first trainer to crack $20 million in purse earnings with $20,867,842 ... He surpassed D. Wayne Lukas' record of 92 stakes victories in a year on Oct. 15, 2006, when Scat Daddy won the Champagne ... He finished that year with 100 stakes wins out 416 starters … In addition, he broke Lukas' record of 53 graded stakes victories in a year with 57 victories ... Two of his horses won Eclipse Awards in 2006 – Fleet Indian (Older Female) and Wait a While (Three-Year-Old Filly) ... Left Bank, 2002 Champion Older Male, became the first of Pletcher's eight Eclipse Award winners after top performances in the G1 Tom Fool and Whitney handicaps. In the Tom Fool, he set a new Belmont track record of 1:20 for seven furlongs, while in the Whitney he equaled the Saratoga track record of 1:47 set by Tri Jet in 1974 ... In 2007, another Pletcher trainee, Lawyer Ron, broke that record when he captured the Whitney in a final time of 1:46.64 ... A perennial leader in New York, Pletcher won five consecutive Saratoga trainer's titles from 2002-2006 before being dethroned by Bill Mott in 2007. He fnished second in the Saratoga standings in both 2008 and 2009 behind Kiaran McLaughlin and Linda Rice, respectively ... Pletcher also holds training titles at Belmont Park, Aqueduct, Gulfstream Park and Keeneland … After seven years with Lukas, Pletcher opened his own public stable with seven horses in Dec. 1995 at Hialeah and won his first race in Feb. 1996 at Gulfstream Park with Majestic Number ... Among his earliest success stories was Jersey Girl, who won seven consecutive races before being injured, including three grade 1 stakes – the Acorn, Mother Goose and Test.
