Pletcher pitches his tent in South Florida

Trainer Todd Pletcher has started his annual pilgrimage to South Florida, having recently shipped approximately 30 horses to his winter base at Palm Beach Downs.

Among those now in Florida is Channel Cat, who at Gulfstream Park won Saturday’s 11th race, a maiden special weight for 2-year-olds on the turf, following the disqualification of Speed Franco.

Pletcher will not have a starter in any of Saturday’s rich Florida Sire finales, but he does plan to run at least one horse, Dial One, and perhaps a second in the $75,000 Armed Forces Stakes for 2-year-olds on the grass earlier in the day.

Dial One returns to Gulfstream off a third-place finish over a muddy track at Saratoga in the Skidmore Stakes. A son of Dialed In owned and bred by Robert LaPenta, Dial One won his maiden at first asking earlier this spring at Gulfstream in a five-furlong turf dash. He also finished third over the main track in the Kiss A Native at Gulfstream before being sent north for the summer.

“We entered Dial One at Laurel with the idea of running there, but when he drew the far outside post going six furlongs we decided to alter course and head down there,” Pletcher said from his barn at Belmont Park on Sunday. “He’s out of a War Front mare, seemed to handle the grass really well in his first start, and he’s already won over that course.”

Pletcher nominated two others, Earth and Bon Raison, for the Armed Forces, but only Bon Raison remains under consideration for the race.

Earth set the pace into the stretch before finishing fifth, four lengths behind Catholic Boy, in Saratoga’s Grade 3 With Anticipation Stakes in his last start. Catholic Boy was nominated to the Armed Forces, but he is unlikely to enter.

“Earth is down there now, but we’re going to wait a little bit for him,” Pletcher said.

Pletcher said the majority – but not all – of the horses he currently has stabled at Palm Beach Downs spent the summer at Monmouth Park.

“It’s the Monmouth horses down there right now, for the most part, along with a few other ones from Saratoga and a few we picked up from Ocala who’d been waiting to come in,” he said. “We’ll begin filtering a few more down as we go along.”

Pletcher said he keeps about 100 head at Palm Beach Downs, which has a stabling capacity for nearly 200 horses, during the peak of the winter season, although he’s now leaning toward maintaining a South Florida contingent on a permanent basis going forward.

“We were very close to staying down there year-round this year,” Pletcher said. “But logistically we need some lead time to work out all the details regarding such things as maintaining the track, blacksmiths, gate crew, and stuff like that. We’ll see what Monmouth is doing next year, but at the moment we’re planning on setting it up to stay in Florida year-round.”