Pletcher shipping horses to Belmont Park on Monday; will also send horses to Churchill

As the New York Racing Association awaits word from regulators about when it will be able to resume racing, trainer Todd Pletcher said Thursday he is planning to ship horses back to Belmont Park on Monday. Pletcher moved his horses out of New York in late March, shortly after racing on this circuit was suspended due to a case of coronavirus on the Belmont Park backstretch.

NYRA has submitted a plan to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office that would call for a resumption of racing without fans at Belmont Park. NYRA has strengthened the bevy of protocols it had in place at Aqueduct when it was able to run racing spectator-free from March 13-15. Sunday marks the 30th card of racing on the NYRA circuit lost due to the closure caused by the coronavirus situation.

“It looks like things are starting to settle down a little bit and there’s hope on the horizon that they’re going to get reopened here so we’ll kind of ease our way back in there and get ready for that,” Pletcher said from Florida.

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Pletcher said the majority of horses he plans to ship north are 2-year-olds and horses returning from a layoff, horses he would normally ship to Saratoga at the beginning of May. The opening of the Oklahoma training track in Saratoga Springs has been delayed indefinitely from its typical mid-April date.

Pletcher said he was also planning to send a small string of horses to Churchill Downs, a track that is scheduled to open on May 16. Pletcher said he does not plan on running any of his 3-year-olds in the Matt Winn Stakes there on May 23.

Pletcher said Money Moves, who won his first two starts impressively, has resumed training after a temperature forced him to miss the Unbridled Stakes on April 25. Pletcher said he is awaiting word on the Belmont Park stakes schedule “to come out and see what it’s got to offer, how far the Belmont Stakes is and all that stuff.”

The Belmont Stakes, scheduled to be run at 1 1/2 miles on June 6, will most certainly not be run at that distance or on that day.