Pletcher's stock
 

I'd love to know an exact number of:

* How many six figure 2yo sale horses he gets a year.

* How many six figure yearling sale horses he gets a year.

* How many regally bred homebreds he gets a year.

Not to mention the fact that he gets better transfers than any other trainer year in and year out (Takes other guys star 3yo's like Quality Road and Lawyer Ron and more recently hot maiden winners)

If it was college football -- his program would get about 70 four and five star recruits out of high school every year. Guys like Larry Jones have to do their damage with just one and a half big owners.

If Pletcher is USC, Texas, Florida, and Ohio State combined into one. Larry Jones is like the Rutgers Scarlet Knights John Sherrifs is like Texas Tech and Jeff Mullins is like Youngstown State in terms of quality of recruit.

Not that anything is wrong with this...but you think Pletcher would have developed a special horse or two.

He's only had a single horse finish in the top 3 in the BC Classic (Flower Alley - who bombed afterwards)

He's only had two horses win a 3yo Classic event (Super Saver and Rags to Riches -- both never won again)

Amazingly, he's only had a single horse of either gender win a 2yo championship (Uncle Mo -- and he couldn't manage to win a single important race afterwards despite having a world of talent)

He's certainly never had a horse come close to capturing Horse of the Year.

Obviously, we are all rooting very hard for Pletcher to get his first Horse of the Year contender. He has certainly paid his dues and no one deserves it more than him.

yes, obviously! :p

How about Klervich stock? They have over 300 babies. Rick v still has most, but they are spread out with a lot of top trainers.

Was less than thrilled when he acquired Sidney's Candy and more recently Turbulent Descent.

They are suckers for the cheaply bred, poorly conformed, fast horses that have been drilled ruthlessly hard, don't develop and eventually fall apart.

They've made a previously good developer of horses like Rick Violette look like the grim reaper with their type of stock over the last dozen years.

Baffert's not far behind quality-wise

I remember back in the 80's when Lukas, for two or three consecutive years, had like half or more of all Mr. Prospectors from those respective foal crops.

I think one year I could actually name seventeen of them off of the top of my head.

Klaravich/Wesley Ward is a match made in heaven. I can't believe it hasn't happened yet.

Brian Mayberry was the king of that, back in the day.

I dunno. Ward's specialty is getting extremely cheap, presumably crooked yearlings as cranked up as possible as early as possible. Like Doug said, Klarman/Lawrence pay big for poorly bred 2yo sale speedsters.

I've said it before - I don't understand how a guy like Klarman who's a brilliant investor doesn't see something wrong with his program and try to switch it up a bit. I guess spreading horses out to other trainers has helped marginally, but it still hasn't been enough.

Also, back to the topic of the thread, I don't understand why any owner besides the big guys would send a horse to Pletcher. There are so many comparable trainers out there who can give your horse closer attention and not have to worry about ducking seven of his other trainees for any race.

I think Pletcher has an edge on Baffert from every single angle quality-wise, and it's not even close quantity wise.

In 2011, Baffert debuted 70 horses. Pletcher debuted 137.

In 2012, Baffert has debuted 27 horses. Pletcher has debuted 55.

He's literally doubling him up on quantity.

And Ben Leon's four yearllings worth $6.5 million didn't even make it to debuts for Pletcher.

I certainly wouldn't disagree about the quantity part--which is why I specifically said "quality-wise"--but I think it is very likely that the average horse in Baffert's barn is worth more than the average horse in Pletcher's barn. It would make sense considering how much Pletcher's stock dwarfs Baffert's in sheer quantity.

Obviously these stats aren't complete and it's a small sample size, but I went through each trainer's debut winners over the past year and averaged the purchase prices of those that were published in the Formulator PPs (so I didn't count RNAs and homebreds). . .

Baffert debut winners avg. purchase price: $360,000 (from 12 winners)
Pletcher: $175,000 (from 23 winners)

Double the quantity, half the quality (if we're considering auction price and quality to be synonymous).

It's a good argument, but that isn't much of a sample size.

My point is both 'programs' don't mind sacrificing a horse's longevity to try to get them to win early and often. Obviously Klaravich has better stock and thus can keep one around occasionally.

In the case of Klaravich -- the horse's longevity has already been sacrificed before he buys them.

His MO is to buy often cheaply bred, often poorly conformed, often very fast horses that have been drilled ruthlessly hard by pin-hookers and light it up at 2yo sales.

Basically, several thousand of these cheap yearlings are given the Todd Marinovich treatment and pushed very hard to try and light it up at a 2yo sale. Klaravich has often targeted the cream of the crop of the cheapies. The ones who flash the most early brilliance and most exceed expectations at sprinting a short distance.

Take Carried Interest for instance -- the horse Dave Grenning called the best looking 2yo prospect in NY so far this year -- that horse is sired by Henny Hughes. The dam of that horse never won a race and bore out and was eased in it's fourth and final career start. Carried Interest worked an 1/8th in 10 flat despite being green at OBS and sold for 190K

By the time Rick Violette and Teresa Pompay get these type of horses, they've already been developed by someone else.

Guys like Bill Mott who have a reputation for developing horses will occasionally get the same type of horse ... and they do terrible with them because they don't always try to strike while the irons hot and they rarely get any development out of them by backing off.

That number is skewed given the purchases by Kaleem Shah.

The amazing part is the 3YO second season is about to start. Despite the quantity and supposed quality of the horses given to him, unless I am missing something, there are only two horses that started with him that may be factors in any of these races: Disposablepleasure and Gemologist. The "program" is chewing up a lot of horses.

Did he hire Zayat's old buyer? The purchase price of Brigand is easily one of the most hilarious in the history of racing.

Owners want a guy like Pletcher who looks and acts like a CEO.

Imagine for one second that Jeff Mulllins wasn't a fruitcake. Imagine he doesn't wear a terrible mullet. Imagine he never went into bodybuilding and made a bigger joke of himself. Imagine other trainers haven't tried to stamp him as a cheater...something they rarely do with other suspicious guys. Imagine he didn't have all of the violations and he didn't call bettors "idiots" and he doesn't make a fool of himself whenever he tries to talk.

Mullins has basically been, in my opinion, no doubt about it the best horse trainer in this country over the last 15 years ... and he literally gets no stock. He's taken about five horses to the Kentucky Derby, he's won 3 Santa Anita Derbys and a Wood Memorial ... and each time he pulled the horse right out of his ass.

He's gone entire years without a single six figure 2yo. Without a single six figure yearling. Without any nicely bred homebreds. He claims horses out of maiden claiming races and gets them to beat Pleasantly Perfect at Del Mar the same year and run 3rd in the Dubai World Cup.

Since 1995, he's started more than 5,000 horses and has a profitable ROI... yet people bet his horses blind on his name and still his ROI remains positive.

Jeff Mullins is a better trainer than Pletcher ... but he gets nothing and probably because horse owners don't want a guy with his image training horses for them.

I'm not saying Pletcher can't train -- he's Mullins like at Gulfstream every year -- but it's all about image and fashion.

good read
 

thanks for the thread/post this is good reading/info, wow i learn something new everyday @DT. i never knew about these programs and the behind the scene. great topic on stock/horses.