Such is the extent of Todd Pletcher’s achievements in racing that, when he was inducted into the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame on August 6, many seemed surprised he was not already a member. The Hall of Fame rules, however, insist an individual must have been training for at least 25 years before induction can happen. Here Todd Sidor pays tribute to Pletcher’s outstanding record and argues that he is perhaps the most accomplished Hall of Fame inductee there has ever been.
Pletcher chose to be introduced by longtime owner Mike Repole when proceedings got under way at the induction ceremony at Fasig Tipton’s Humphrey S Finney Sales Pavilion in Saratoga Springs. (The event included inductees from both 2020 and 2021 as last year’s was not held because of Covid. Also being inducted were flat trainer Mark Casse for 2020 and steeplechase conditioner Jack Fischer.)
Repole, in addition to being a savvy businessman, having become a billionaire by developing Pirate’s Booty and other products, has a deep passion for racing. He and Pletcher had known each other since 2004, when Repole first became involved in the sport. However, it was not until 2009 that he approached Pletcher to train for him.
“I had a great [Saratoga] meet in 2009,” he said. “I hold the Saratoga record. I was 0 for 36 as an owner. I said [to Todd] one day ... I’m going to have one of the fastest horses you’ve ever had. I’m going to do this. And, just the next year, Uncle Mo breaks his maiden by 14½ lengths.”
Uncle Mo was indeed fast. The following year he produced the top Beyer speed figure in North America, a 118 in the Kelso Handicap. “We’ve gone from client, to partner, to friend, to brother,” Repole said of Pletcher.
Pletcher was born in Dallas, to Jake J and Joan Pletcher in 1967. Two years later, his father would become licensed as a Thoroughbred racehorse trainer after trying his hand with Quarter Horses at Ruidoso Downs, where he met D Wayne Lukas.
Now ‘JJ’ Pletcher manages Payton Training Center in Ocala, Florida, which he founded some years ago and where many of his son’s horses begin their careers.
Early on, though, young Todd was hot-walking horses from the age of seven. In his high-school years, he would spend every summer with one of his father’s racing friends, including Henry Moreno, Charlie Whittingham and ‘The Coach’ - D Wayne Lukas, who would become his mentor and friend.
In a Blood-Horse article, Lukas once quipped about Pletcher’s time with him from 1989 to 1995: “Frankly, he was going to be good whether or not he ever met me. And he probably helped me as much as I helped him. But he knows [the advice] is there if ever he needs it.”
Mutual respect
Echoing the mutual respect, in Pletcher’s acceptance speech at Saratoga Springs he said, “After I went out on my own, the most common question I’d get [was], ‘what is the one thing you learned working for Wayne Lukas?’ And the answer has evolved over the years. The answer is there’s not one thing, it’s everything. Everything matters. Everyone matters. Every horse matters. Every horse owner matters.”
Pletcher had his first Graded stakes winner in 1998 with Oh Nellie, a dark bay mare owned by Michael Tabor, who won the Noble Damsel Handicap at Belmont Park. He was following in the footsteps of The Coach, who made his first Graded stakes winner’s circle with a filly too, Secretariat’s daughter Terlingua, in the Debutante Stakes at Del Mar. Terlingua would go on to foal Storm Cat.
Fillies and mares continued to bolster Pletcher’s resume, as did his relationship with Michael Tabor and Coolmore - he won his first Triple Crown race in 2007 with Coolmore’s Rags To Riches, who would go on to become Champion Three-Year Old Filly. Pletcher has won this award twice more, with Ashado (2004) and Wait A While (2006). The former would repeat as Older Female Champion, and Pletcher would win that award the following year as well - with Fleet Indian (2006).
Pletcher has had just as much success with males, training Two-Year Old Champions Uncle Mo (2010), and Shanghai Bobby (2012), owned by another of his top owners, Starlight Racing.
In the older male ranks, his first horse to win an Eclipse Award was Left Bank, owned by Michael Tabor, in 2002. This has been followed by two additional wins with Whitney Handicap scorer Lawyer Ron (2007), who also set the track record, and Repole’s Vino Rosso (2019), who gave Pletcher his only Breeders’ Cup Classic win. Pletcher also trained Champion Sprinter Speightstown (2004).
Turf success
All those mentioned so far are dirt performers, but Pletcher has had success on the turf too, winning the Breeders’ Cup Turf with Eclipse Award winner English Channel (2007). He has won 11 Breeders’ Cup races in eight different divisions, and he has five wins in Triple Crown races - two in the Kentucky Derby (2010, 2016) and three in the Belmont (2007, 2013, and 2017).
To offer some perspective regarding Pletcher’s achievements, it helps to look at other great North American trainers in the Graded stakes era. For instance, Bob Baffert, the leader in Triple Crown race wins with 17, has a career total of 576 Graded wins, with 229 at G1 level worldwide. However, in 2009, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame with just 267 Graded wins and 97 G1s after training for 30 years. Pletcher has five years to go until he reaches 30 and is already well past Baffert’s total.
Baffert has won more than 40 Graded stakes in a single year just once (in 1999), when he won 44, while Pletcher has won 40 or more in nine different years.
And then there’s Lukas. In 1999, he was a first-ballot inductee into the Hall of Fame with 339 Graded wins, and 191 G1s. In his best year, the most Graded stakes he won was 54.
Pletcher’s high mark is 58 - in 2006. And he sent out 57 the following year.
Another recent Hall of Fame inductee is Steve Asmussen, 55, inducted in 2016 after 30 years of training. At that point, he had 191 Graded wins, and 37 G1s.
Pletcher, at age 54, leads all active trainers with 719 Graded stakes wins, and his 165 G1s at the time of induction into the Hall of Fame is second only to Lukas.
Awards wise, no trainer has garnered as many Outstanding Trainer Eclipse Awards as Pletcher. His total of seven stands above Bobby Frankel, a five-time winner, and Baffert, Laz Barrera, Chad Brown and Lukas, all with four. Pletcher and Frankel are the only trainers to have won the award four years in a row. He has been the leading trainer by wins at Saratoga 12 times, and twice more he has shared the plaudits with other trainers. He was also the leading trainer at Gulfstream Park from 2004 to 2016.
With all this success in top races, it is no surprise that Todd Pletcher ranks as the all-time leader in earnings by a trainer in North America - $409 million and counting as I write this. He has been the leading trainer by money earned in the U.S. in half of the last 20 years. Asmussen ranks second with about $360 million.
The truly remarkable feature of Todd Pletcher’s career is that, at age 54, he still has much he can accomplish to add to these stunning achievements. As he reaches for those new horizons, he can do so as North America’s latest Hall of Famer and in many respects history’s most decorated inductee ever.
Leaving no doubt about his fondness for horses who got him there, he closed his remarks by taking a line from another of his mentors, W Cothran ‘Cot’ Campbell, who pioneered racing partnerships with his Dogwood Stables, which delivered some of Pletcher’s biggest wins, including the Belmont Stakes with Palace Malice.
“Most of all, I want to thank the horses, the horses, and the horses,” Pletcher said.
Todd Sidor, an attorney by trade, has helped produce equine law seminars, and has been a member of racing partnerships for a number of years. His more than two decades’ passion and respect for the sport of horseracing will always make him, first and foremost, a racing enthusiast with a penchant for racing history.