2013 Eclipse Awards: Todd Pletcher

photo by: Barbara D. Livingston

Entering 2013 trainer Todd Pletcher led North American trainers in earnings seven times, including consecutively from 2010-2012.

With the year now complete, that total can be updated to eight. Pletcher again ran away in the earnings race, with his stable amassing earnings of more than $25.2 million, nearly $10 million more than any other trainer, with Bob Baffert second with more than $15.3 million.

Pletcher’s dynamic year, in which he also led all trainers with 48 graded stakes victories, pushed him ever closer to becoming the leading earning trainer of all time, an achievement he is on pace to accomplish in 2014. Through the end of 2013, his stable had earned nearly $258.3 million, placing him roughly $8.6 million behind leader and mentor D. Wayne Lukas, whose total is just slightly more than $266.9 million.

Pletcher won 13 Grade 1 races in 2013, the most of any trainer, highlighted by Palace Malice’s victory in the Belmont Stakes. Princess of Sylmar topped his stable by winning four Grade 1 races: the Beldame, Alabama, Coaching Club American Oaks, and Kentucky Oaks.

His Grade 1 winners included Verrazano in the Haskell and Wood Memorial, Cross Traffic in the Whitney, Capo Bastone in the King’s Bishop, Graydar in the Donn, Overanalyze in the Arkansas Derby, We Miss Artie in the Breeders’ Futurity, and Havana in the Champagne.

Pletcher, 46, has won five Eclipse Awards as outstanding trainer, most recently in 2010. He won four consecutive Eclipses from 2004-07, becoming just the third trainer to accomplish that feat, joining Bobby Frankel (2000-03) and Laz Barrera (1976-79).