Todd Pletcher
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Todd Pletcher
Born: June 26, 1967, Dallas, Texas
Todd Pletcher has accomplished what most trainers can only dream about. He has become the most dominant trainer today in the sport of Thoroughbred Racing, garnering three consecutive Eclipse Awards as outstanding Trainer of the Year, while topping the leader board in purse earnings in 2004, 2005, and 2006.
2006 has been an exceptional year for Pletcher. He broke his own single-season earnings record on October 7, when Fleet Indian captured a win in the prestigious Beldame Stakes at Belmont Park. That win proved to be a first in a day of multiple winners for Pletcher as Honey Ryder won the Flower Bowl Invitational, English Channel won the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic Invitational Stakes, and India won the Fitz Dixon Cotillion Breeders’ Cup Handicap at Philadelphia Park. His purse earnings total $27,670,243.
He broke the 19 year-old North American record for most stakes wins in a year, on October 14, when the two year-old colt Scat Daddy won the $400,000 Champagne Stakes at Belmont Park, making it the 93rd stakes victory of the year for Pletcher. The record was set by his former boss and mentor D. Wayne Lukas in 1987. Pletcher’s 93 stakes wins include 52 graded events and a career best 17 Grade 1 wins.
Pletcher’s record breaking season includes a win with Bluegrass Cat in the $1,000,000 Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park, NJ followed by the colt’s very impressive second place finishes in the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes.
In 2005, he set a single season earnings record with purse earnings totaling $20,867,842 with trips to the winners’ circle in ten Grade 1 races, including the Travers Stakes at Saratoga, NY with Flower Alley and the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland, KY with Bandini.
Pletcher has amassed numerous training titles in New York, Kentucky and Florida, including five consecutive titles at the prestigious Saratoga Race Track summer meet. He has received several Fourstar Dave (for Special Achievement at Saratoga Race Course) and Woody Stevens (for Outstanding trainer) Awards from the New York Turf Writers Association.
In 2004 he trained three year-old filly Ashado to a win in the coveted Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs, KY. Later that year Ashado roared back to clinch victory in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff. The filly went on to capture the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Three-Year-Old of the year in ‘04 and as Best Older Female in ’05. Her stablemate, Speightstown, gave Pletcher a second Breeders’ Cup win in ’04 in the Sprint division as well as a second Eclipse award when he was named Outstanding Sprint Horse that same year.
Todd began working for his father Jake Pletcher as a hot walker at the age of seven. During his summers off from junior and senior high school he went to California where he worked as a hot walker for Henry Moreno at Hollywood Park, CA and Del Mar, CA.
He graduated from high school in 1985 and began college at the University of Arizona in their Race Track Industry Program in the fall of that year. Between his sophomore and junior years he worked as a groom for legendary Hall of Fame trainer, D. Wayne Lukas at Arlington Park in Chicago, IL. He spent the following summer with another legendary Hall of Fame trainer, Charlie Whittingham, working as a groom at Hollywood Park.
He graduated from college with a Bachelor of Animal Science in May of 1989 and traveled to New York immediately following graduation to work for Lukas as a foreman in the active stable.
In 1991 he was promoted to assistant trainer for Lukas, splitting his time between New York and Florida. Pletcher was Lukas’ East Coast Assistant until the end of 1995 where he was instrumental in the development of such great horses as Thunder Gulch, Harlan, Serena’s Song, A Wild Ride, and Flanders. He took out his trainer’s license in December of 1995 and saddled his first winner, Majestic Number, in February 1996 at Gulfstream Park in FL.
