Pletcher to monitor Derby runners with an eye to Belmont Stakes

ELMONT, N.Y. – Todd Pletcher’s quartet of starters from the Kentucky Derby as well as his Kentucky Oaks winner Malathaat were all expected to arrive at Belmont Park on Monday afternoon. Pletcher will monitor their training over the next week and talk with connections to see if any – or more likely how many – may show up in the Belmont Stakes on June 5.

Pletcher has won three Belmonts and finished second six times. Seven of those nine horses ran in the Belmont following starts in the Kentucky Derby, or in the case of Rags to Riches, the Kentucky Oaks the previous day, and had five weeks in between starts.

It is unlikely that Pletcher’s Derby runners from Saturday – Known Agenda (ninth in the Kentucky Derby), Sainthood (11th), Bourbonic (13th), or Dynamic One (18th) – would run back in the Preakness on May 15, but several would seem likely for the Belmont.

Pletcher did not entirely rule out having a starter in the Preakness with Unbridled Honor, a son of Honor Code who was second to King Fury in the Grade 3 Lexington Stakes on April 10 at Keeneland. Unbridled Honor also is possible for Saturday’s Grade 2, $200,000 Peter Pan Stakes at Belmont Park, where Pletcher is definitely planning to start Overtook, second in the Withers on Feb. 3, and Promise Keeper, a first-level allowance winner on April 8 at Keeneland.

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The Peter Pan, the traditional local prep for the Belmont, is expected to include Withers winner Risk Taking, Gotham winner Weyburn, Sam F. Davis Stakes runner-up Nova Rags, and Wolfie’s Dynaghost, who has not raced since beating Weyburn when both debuted on Nov. 14 at Aqueduct.

Meanwhile, of his Derby quartet, Pletcher felt Known Agenda ran better than his ninth-place finish, beaten 10 3/4 lengths, may appear on paper. Known Agenda broke well from the rail post under Irad Ortiz Jr. but an eighth of a mile into the race Like the King came over on Known Agenda and Ortiz had to check. Known Agenda was 17th coming by the wire the first time.

“That pretty much gave him very little chance at that point,” Pletcher said Monday on Steve Byk’s “At the Races” radio show. “I thought he made some good progress up the backstretch. Going to the half-mile pole he crept back up into eighth or ninth, then he had to tap on the brakes again and went back to 16th or 17th. I like the way he finished, he was still running down horses late and he galloped up to the leaders. To me, it was a very sneaky good race for him.”

Pletcher felt Dynamic One also encountered trouble in the race but Sainthood and Bourbonic both ran their races.

As for Malathaat, Pletcher said Saturday, the morning after her Oaks victory, that the Belmont will be under consideration as would the Mother Goose on June 26.