Pletcher has two shots at Gold Cup breakthrough

ELMONT, N.Y. – Todd Pletcher has won virtually every Grade 1 race run in New York. To this point, however, the Jockey Club Gold Cup has eluded him.

Pletcher has run 13 horses in 10 editions of the Gold Cup. He finished second with Lawyer Ron (to Curlin) in 2007 and finished second again in 2011 with Stay Thirsty, who was beaten a head by Flat Out.

On Saturday, Pletcher will try again when he sends out the pair of Constitution and Coach Inge in the $1 million Jockey Club Gold Cup, a stepping-stone to the $5 million Breeders’ Cup Classic at Keeneland on Oct. 31.

Those two will take on Tonalist, last year’s Jockey Club Gold Cup winner, as well as Effinex, Wicked Strong, and Looks to Spare in the Gold Cup, one of six graded stakes on Saturday’s 11-race card. First post is 12:20 p.m. Eastern.

Coach Inge, gelded after his second start, has run triple-digit Beyer Speed Figures in his last four starts. Included in that streak was a neck win in the Grade 2 Brooklyn, a 1 1/2-length loss when third in the Grade 2 Suburban after setting rapid fractions, and a second-place finish to stablemate Liam’s Map in the Grade 1 Woodward at Saratoga.

“He ran well enough to win a lot of Woodwards,” Pletcher said Wednesday. “Tactically, he was a little bit in a tricky spot because he didn’t want to go head-and-head with his stablemate, so he showed he could sit off a horse and run effectively. His race in the Suburban, I thought, was a very gutsy race considering how fast he went early on. He’s proven he’s a legitimate, solid older handicap horse.”

Constitution won the Grade 1 Donn Handicap in February. Sidelined due to a shin injury suffered in March, Constitution came off the layoff to run fifth in the Grade 2 Bernard Baruch on turf Sept. 7.

“Hopefully, he got enough out of the Bernard Baruch to get him ready for this,” Pletcher said.