Early career Pletcher began working for his father, Jake, as a
hot walker at the age of seven. During his summers off from junior and senior high school, he went to California, where he worked as a hot walker for
Henry Moreno at
Hollywood Park and
Del Mar Racetracks. He graduated from James Madison High School in San Antonio, Texas in 1985 and began college at the
University of Arizona in their Race Track Industry Program in the fall of that year. Between his sophomore and junior years, he worked as a
groom for
D. Wayne Lukas at
Arlington Park near
Chicago. He spent the following summer with another legendary Hall of Fame trainer,
Charlie Whittingham, working as a groom at
Hollywood Park. While attending the University of Arizona, Pletcher was an active member of
Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity.
Career as horse trainer He graduated from college with a Bachelor of
Animal Science in May 1989 and traveled to New York immediately following graduation to work for Lukas as a foreman in the active stable. In 1991, he was promoted to assistant trainer for Lukas, splitting his time between New York and Florida. Pletcher was Lukas's East Coast Assistant until fall of 1995 where he helped develop horses such as
Thunder Gulch, Harlan,
Serena's Song, A Wild Ride, and Flanders. He took out his trainer's license in December 1995 and saddled his first winner, Majestic Number, in February 1996 at
Gulfstream Park in
Florida. In 2004, he got his big break and trained three-year-old filly
Ashado to a win in the
Kentucky Oaks at
Churchill Downs in
Louisville. Later that year, Ashado won the
Breeders' Cup Distaff. The filly went on to capture the Eclipse Awards for Outstanding Three-Year-Old of the year in 2004 and Best Older Female in 2005. Her stablemate, Speightstown, gave Pletcher a second
Breeders' Cup win in 2004 in the Sprint division as well as a second Eclipse award when he was named Outstanding Sprint Horse that same year.
Record earning In 2005, Pletcher set a single season earnings record with purse earnings totaling $20,867,842 with trips to the winner's circle in ten Grade 1 races, including the
Travers Stakes at
Saratoga with Flower Alley and the
Blue Grass Stakes at
Keeneland Race Course with Bandini. Pletcher broke his own single-season earnings record on October 7, 2006, when Fleet Indian captured the
Beldame Stakes at
Belmont Park. That win proved to be the first in a day of multiple winners for Pletcher as Honey Ryder won the
Flower Bowl Invitational Stakes, English Channel won the
Joe Hirsch Turf Classic Invitational Stakes, and India won the
Fitz Dixon Cotillion Breeders' Cup Handicap at
Philadelphia Park. His purse earnings total $27,670,243. Later that year, he broke the 19-year-old North American record for most stakes wins in a year, on October 14, when the two-year-old colt
Scat Daddy won the $400,000
Champagne Stakes at Belmont Park, making it the 93rd stakes victory of the year for Pletcher. The record was set by his former boss and mentor,
D. Wayne Lukas, in 1987. Pletcher's 93 stakes wins included 52 graded events and a career-best 17 Grade 1 wins. Pletcher's season included a win with
Bluegrass Cat in the $1,000,000
Haskell Invitational at
Monmouth Park following the colt's second-place finishes in the
Kentucky Derby and
Belmont Stakes.
Awards In the 2007
Belmont Stakes, Pletcher earned his first win in a
Triple Crown race when
Rags to Riches became the first filly to win that race since 1905. After missing the winner's circle with 24 previous entries, Pletcher won his first
Kentucky Derby on May 1, 2010, with
Super Saver, the 8-1 second choice, with jockey
Calvin Borel aboard. In 2013, Pletcher's
Palace Malice, ridden by Mike Smith, won the
2013 Belmont Stakes. In May 2014, the 140th Kentucky Derby featured four of his horses: Danza,
Intense Holiday,
Vinceremos and
We Miss Artie. In May 2015, the 141st Kentucky Derby featured three more of his horses: Materiality, Itsaknockout, and Carpe Diem. They each finished 6th, 9th, and 10th, respectively. In 2017, he won the Kentucky Derby a second time with
Always Dreaming who was looked after for and taken care by Chris Murphy of Long Island (Nephew to the Eclipse Award winner of 1986, Declan Murphy). ==Honors==