Pletcher's success abundant at sales as well

Todd Pletcher was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in a ceremony at Fasig-Tipton’s Humphrey S. Finney Pavilion. Most likely not considered by voters was Pletcher’s record of turning out runners who go on to succeed as stallions. However, it certainly became relevant when crowds returned to the pavilion for the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga selected yearling sale. A group of 27 yearlings by former Pletcher trainees changed hands at the boutique sale for $13.14 million, an average of $486,667.

“There will never, ever be a trainer that is the stallion-maker Todd Pletcher is,” said owner Mike Repole, who introduced Pletcher at the induction ceremony. “From More Than Ready, to Speightstown, to Uncle Mo, to Scat Daddy, to Quality Road – and now their sons are out there producing. He is the greatest stallion-maker in the history of this sport . . . and he’s just getting started, guys.”

Pletcher trained Repole’s colorbearer Uncle Mo to victory in the 2010 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and a divisional Eclipse Award. The duo have watched Uncle Mo go on to become a young leading sire and classic sire for Coolmore’s Ashford Stud in Kentucky. Uncle Mo was represented by a $1.6 million colt who fetched the second-highest price at Fasig-Tipton Saratoga, and who will eventually join Pletcher’s operation.

Bloodstock agent Jacob West signed the $1.6 million ticket for the Uncle Mo colt on behalf of Robert and Lawana Low. The colt is out of five-time stakes winner Dame Dorothy, who took the Grade 1 Humana Distaff Stakes over Eclipse Award winner Judy the Beauty. The mare’s first foal is Spice Is Nice, winner of the Grade 3 Allaire duPont Distaff Stakes in May at Pimlico. Pletcher currently has Spice Is Nice in the barn after training both Uncle Mo and Dame Dorothy.

“He trained the sire, he trained the dam,” West said. “He won a Grade 1 with her. She was incredible. It’s a family he’s familiar with.”

Pletcher-trained stallions accounted for two of the four seven-figure horses sold at the selected sale. A filly by Quality Road sold for $1 million to Jeff Drown’s Kindred Stables.