Todd Pletcher’s horses generally compete in the biggest and best races a track has to offer. But train as long as Pletcher has and the meets can still become a blur, bleeding into each other.
Not so with the “Million Dollar Meet” that starts at Monmouth Park today, with the Shore track reducing its live racing to 50 days through Sept. 6 while awarding $50 million in purse money over that span — a daily average that will be the highest in the country.
“It has probably generated the most interest and most following and most anticipation of a meet starting, really, that I can remember in quite a while,” said Pletcher, a four-time Eclipse Award winner.
“There’s always a buzz about Saratoga starting, maybe Keeneland, meets like that.
“But this is the first time in a while that the industry is focused on how a meeting is going to go.”
At stake, quite possibly, is the future of racing in the state. In the bigger picture, thoroughbred racing needs to find a cure for a sport that has been ailing for a while now.
“I think it’s terrific they’re trying something different,” Pletcher said. “So many times in our industry everyone says ‘the model’s broken, the model’s broken.’ But no one wants to do anything to fix it.
“So I applaud Monmouth for taking the initiative to mix things up and try something different. I think it will be very interesting to see how this goes and how it will affect the rest of the country in terms of being the model other tracks follow.”
Pletcher isn’t merely paying industry lip service to Monmouth’s big gamble, though.
He has the maximum 36 stalls and vows to be active, entering four horses today and five Sunday.
More significant is that he has his equine ‘A’ material on the grounds.
“What we’ve done as a reaction to what Monmouth has put in play is we’ve shuffled our deck and we’ve sent horses to Monmouth that normally would have gone to Belmont or, possibly, Churchill,” he said. “But the competition is trying to do the same.”
Having Pletcher’s star horse power at a meet is no small thing, either.
“It’s like having Alex Rodriguez playing third base for you,” said Bob Kulina, Monmouth Park’s general manager and vice president. “He’s an Eclipse Award winner. He just won the Kentucky Derby. He’s a future Hall of Famer. He sets the standard for other horsemen.”
The opening 13-race card offers “just” $812,000 in purses, that total does not include $1,500 paid to every starter from fifth to last and bonus money for Jersey-breds hitting the board against open company.
Pletcher, meanwhile, says he will probably be at Monmouth in person more than he has in recent years. He also said that Kentucky Derby winner Super Saver is “a definitely possibility,” for the Aug. 1 Haskell, which could set up a rematch with Preakness winner Lookin At Lucky.
