Pletcher does an about face with Verrazano

[mjellish]

Is it just me, or is Pletcher doing a complete 180 when it comes to training at Churchill leading up to the KY Derby? In the past, for the most part, he\'s kept his colts or shipped them back down to Florida after a prep and continued to train them down there.  He usually only ships into Churchill a few days before the KY Derby.  And he\'s always said things like \'They\'ve been doing so well training down there that he doesn\'t want to break their rhythm, or he wants to keep the plan the same as what has worked for the colt in the past.\'  

And now, with this one Verrazano, he\'s suddenly saying that they have to train at Churchill??

His quotes are below.  But I wonder what is prompting the about face...


\"The key now is to go to Churchill and get over that track well. Churchill can be a very peculiar surface, and a lot of horses don’t handle it.\" ... \"He’s gone a mile, mile and a sixteenth, a mile and an eighth now and handled each one. He’s got to go to Churchill and he’s got to train well over that surface. If it’s the surface we saw at the Breeders’ Cup a couple of years ago, there might be no one that handles it. That’s the real key. We’ve got a new track superintendent there; hopefully we get a good honest surface there.”

[jimbo66]

MJ,

I am not reading that as any lack of faith in Verrazano or anything negative at all about the colt.

How I read that is Pletcher, like many of us here who have played Churchill a bit the last few years, have realized that the track crew there has done an absolutely awful job on a number of big days / big events.  They \"shit the bed\" on both breeder\'s cups, on the Derby 2 of the last 3 years and on several other big cards where they had dead rails, dead speed, non-standard racing surface.

He wants to get there early to adjust to whatever they are doing, although he does lay out in his last sentence some hope that they will get it right this time because of the \"new crew\".

Anyway, just one interpretation.

Jim

[covelj70]

MJ,

One possible explanation is that the surface at Palm Meadows was an absolute abomination by the end of the GP meet.

Terranova told me it was the worst it had ever been by an order of magnitude in the 12 years he has been training on it.

He couldn\'t wait to get his/my horses off of that surface and so he shipped to CD early this year as well.

They apparently haven\'t done significant maintenance on the Palm Meadows track since they installed it.

That is one possible reason although there are obviously many others

[moosepalm]

In looking at the archives, at least through the past six years, the only Pletcher horses that had run at least a 2 going into the Derby, and held or improved on their form were those who had also run a 2 over the Churchill strip as 2-year olds.  Other than those, only the undistinguished Sam P improved upon his form in the Derby itself.  I have no idea how much working a horse over a surface improves his predisposition to run on that surface, but I suspect there are more than a few here who do.

[mjellish]

I don\'t think it is a negative.  If anything it is a positive as I really think training at Churchill helps (provided the weather isn\'t so bad they miss training).

My post is more of a curious one.  It could mean nothing.  But why now, with this colt, when Pletcher has been getting numbers again down south and has always kept his colts there.  

Being able to watch this colt train up at Churchill, where everyone is watching, is a different kettle of fish than Pletcher being able to keep him under wraps down south at PMM and do whatever he normally does down there.  You can\'t even get a private clocker on site over there.  

And for the players, knowing that Verrazano has been kept on track at Churchill for a few weeks and trained will give us a much more reliable means to gauge his condition as opposed to wondering what exactly happened down in Florida until 4 days ago when he shipped up and then galloped around once a day.

I\'m not saying Pletcher is doing anything down south or not.  But I am saying he\'s been getting numbers AGAIN down there.  And if he is doing something he may not be able to do it at Churchill.  

Knowing how most of these guys are very much creatures of habit, I pay attention to any type of change like this.

I think Jim\'s post about the surface at PMM may have some merit.  

Dunno.  But nonetheless, it is curious to me.

[TGJB]

MJ-- what do you make of the Pletcher at CD stats?

[covelj70]

JB, it might be worth nothing that Jack Milton ran his race for Pletcher in the Translyvania at Keenland on opening day.

I obviously don\'t know what he ran but based on what the others were running going into that race, I would think (could be wrong) JM had to at least run his number if not a new top.

If Palice Malice an/or Charming Kitten run their numbers this weekend, we may have our first clue to this puzzle

[TGJB]

For whatever reason his stats the lastcouple of years have been different at CD than Kee.

[Michael D.]

mjellish Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Is it just me, or is Pletcher doing a complete 180
> when it comes to training at Churchill leading up
> to the KY Derby? In the past, for the most part,
> he\'s kept his colts or shipped them back down to
> Florida after a prep and continued to train them
> down there.  He usually only ships into Churchill
> a few days before the KY Derby.  And he\'s always
> said things like \'They\'ve been doing so well
> training down there that he doesn\'t want to break
> their rhythm, or he wants to keep the plan the
> same as what has worked for the colt in the past.\'
>  
>
> And now, with this one Verrazano, he\'s suddenly
> saying that they have to train at Churchill??
>
> His quotes are below.  But I wonder what is
> prompting the about face...
>
>
> \"The key now is to go to Churchill and get over
> that track well. Churchill can be a very peculiar
> surface, and a lot of horses don’t handle it.\" ...
> \"He’s gone a mile, mile and a sixteenth, a mile
> and an eighth now and handled each one. He’s got
> to go to Churchill and he’s got to train well over
> that surface. If it’s the surface we saw at the
> Breeders’ Cup a couple of years ago, there might
> be no one that handles it. That’s the real key.
> We’ve got a new track superintendent there;
> hopefully we get a good honest surface there.”


Michael,

I agree with what Jimbo said. Could also explain, at least in part, why the Pletcher dirt horses, many of them speedballs, have done so much better at speedy GP over the past few years (vs CD). He generally brings the long-winded turf types to Kee.

[mjellish]

JB-

I don\'t like accusing people without proof.  But I do believe in circumstantial evidence.  And the fact of the matter is that Pletcher, at times, gets numbers that don\'t make any sense.  No one is THAT good.  The best way to realize that is to actually make your own figures.  You do, I am pretty sure you know exactly what I mean.

Now with that being said, there is also a lot of legal work that a vet can do on a horse.  And you can tweak them to get a big one out of them, and sometimes you can tweak them again to get another one.  And some of these guys do exactly that.  Nothing illegal.  But eventually the lemon will run dry.

You want to see a stable change quickly (for better or worse), quickest way IMO is to change vets.  Someone gets caught with something, and all of a sudden a 35% trainer becomes a mortal 10% winner.  You ship from somewhere that doesn\'t test for this or that to somewhere that does, same thing.  And that probably is not a coincidence.

So although you don\'t want to accuse someone of something illicit without proof, as a player you have to pay attention to what the numbers are telling you.  

So I look at this stuff sort of like that Supreme Court justice who said he couldn\'t define pornography, but he knew it when he saw it.

[TGJB]

Yeah. But why specifically cold at CD last 2 years? They changed labs 2 years ago-- but he\'s done okay at Kee. Why CD?

[mjellish]

Where\'s the barn at each venue, who can see what at each and what are the differences in security?  

Start with that.  Testing is only part of it.

[Dick Powell]

It could be the horses come from GP in good form but might be tailing off. So the three weeks of KEE is at the right time but CD is far enough down the road to start showing the effects of a long winter.
Maybe some horsemen on the board can confirm this but I have been told that CD has added a lot of dirt to the surface and it doesn\'t drain as well as it used to. The crazy thing is no matter what track TAP trains over, the one he sees on the first Saturday of May is usually very different. I do think there is value to get there in time to do all your schooling and get adjusted to the chaos of the weeks leading up to the Derby.

[TGJB]

Yeah again. When this subject first came up a couple of weeks ago I mentioned a similar situation with Frankel-- and supposedly that was the deal, at one Cali track his barn was in plain view, the other it was at the end of a road with only one way of access, you could see people coming.

[Caradoc]

I\'m afraid we can\'t get very far with any of this.  Pletcher\'s CD fall numbers last year were as bad as his spring numbers, where any tailoff from the winter in Florida could not be a factor.  Further he did fine during the Belmont 2012 spring meet (14 wins from 64 starters) where any tailoff should have shown up.

The CD stats are a total outlier but so far inexplicable.