Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Pletcher controlling the game with Forte and Tapit Trice
There have been many years Todd Pletcher spent March and April moving 3-year-olds all over the chessboard. This year, Pletcher has fewer pawns in the game. But he has the reigning king stabled at his winter base, the Palm Beach Downs training center in Florida, and another piece that showed his power this past weekend.
Forte, 2-year-old champion of 2022, solidified his position as Kentucky Derby favorite over the last week by doing nothing more than routine training. Tapit Trice rose all the way to No. 3 in Daily Racing Form’s weekly Derby Watch by virtue of his March 11 victory in the Tampa Bay Derby. And as of now, Pletcher has only one more established dirt horse on the board, Kingsbarns, who makes his stakes debut March 25 in the Louisiana Derby. Major Dude, a turf stakes winner, is scheduled to start in the Jeff Ruby Steaks on Turfway’s synthetic racing surface.
Litigate, winner of the Sam Davis Stakes on Feb. 11 at Tampa Bay Downs, has suffered a setback and is off the Derby trail, Pletcher said Tuesday.
Forte sweetly won the Fountain of Youth Stakes on March 4. Not every Eclipse Award-winning 2-year-old progresses into his 3-year-old season, but Forte looked like one of the lucky ones. Showing even greater professionalism than he displayed during a four-win 2-year-old campaign, Forte rated and rallied to an easy Fountain of Youth score, earning a 98 Beyer Speed Figure that was plenty fast but not too fast.
He’s Pletcher’s most formidable latewinter Derby hope since Uncle Mo in 2011, but things, knock on wood, are progressing perfectly with Forte. Uncle Mo, the 2-yearold champion of 2010, won a minor stakes in his 3-year-old debut but was suffering from a liver disorder by the time he finished third as the 1-10 favorite in the Wood Memorial and was taken out of Triple Crown consideration. Pletcher said Uncle Mo worked like himself that winter and early spring but never looked quite right and failed to hold his weight. Forte, who preps for the Kentucky Derby in the Florida Derby, still is thriving.
“It looked like there was more in the tank last time, and he came out of it well,” Pletcher said.
Forte forges forward while attrition continues claiming elite members of this 3-year-old crop. Arabian Knight, with raw talent to equal any horse his age, is the latest potential star to be taken out of Derby consideration. That happened last week after other top members of the class like Cave Rock and Loggins have fallen by the wayside. National Treasure, third in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, was scratched from the March 4 San Felipe and didn’t return to the work tab until Tuesday. Extra Anejo, favored in the first Derby Future pool last fall, hasn’t raced since his career debut in October.
If things continue on their current trajectory, Forte will come to the Derby as Pletcher’s first favorite since 2017 winner Always Dreaming. Pletcher has two Derby wins from 62 starters (including multiple starters many years) but is 1 for 1 running a Derby favorite.
“We never, ever take anything for granted, but we’re super happy with the position we’re in right now,” Pletcher said. Forte “has such a good foundation with three mile-and-sixteenth races, and now he gets the opportunity to stretch out to a mile and an eighth in the Florida Derby.”
By Violence, whom Pletcher trained until injury ended his career following a secondplace finish in the 2013 Fountain of Youth, Forte doesn’t have a pedigree shouting 1 1/4 miles. Often, it’s a good idea to focus on the individual rather than his bloodlines.
“He came to the wire with his ears up on both of his last two starts,” Pletcher said. “It looks like he can go farther.”
Forte, who won the Grade 1 Hopeful and Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity before capturing the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, is the consummate professional, doing everything right in his races. Tapit Trice still makes mistakes, but his talent shines through, and there’s little doubt longer distances will prove his friend.
Third in his debut going a one-turn mile at Aqueduct, Tapit Trice was a second-out winner in the same kind of race, scored by eight lengths in a Gulfstream Park one-turn mile on Feb. 4, and rallied from a seemingly impossible position near the back of a bulky field at the three-furlong marker to win his stakes and two-turn debut last weekend. As
he’s done in all his starts, Tapit Trice broke poorly, but while he readily got into the Gulfstream allowance even going into the turn, Tapit Trice had to be hard-ridden to make any progress last Saturday before finally finding stride in the homestretch.
“I think some of that was Tampa – it’s a tricky surface sometimes. Once he got into the clear and started getting hold of the track, he was impressive. He’s a pretty lightly raced horse. We’ll keep working on things. Everything about him physically suggests the farther he goes the better, and he bounced out of the race really well,” Pletcher said.
Tapit Trice heads to the Blue Grass for his final Derby prep, leaving Kingsbarns to take the Louisiana route.
Kingsbarns, who is by Uncle Mo, has yet to run especially fast, earning Beyer Speed Figures of 74 and then 85, but he has started his career with two wins, going from a one-turn Gulfstream maiden race to an easy two-turn allowance score at Tampa Bay.
“He did something it’s difficult to do – winning his debut at a mile where he was behind horses and had to push his way through at the top of the stretch. We felt like we needed a little more experience before trying a stakes race, and he won handily around two turns at Tampa,” Pletcher said.
An entire column of the trainer-record section of the Kentucky Derby media guide is devoted to Pletcher’s Derby starters. Twice, he’s had as many as five runners in a single Derby, and four times he’s run four horses.
But there’s something to be said for quality over quantity. Pletcher and those who watched Always Dreaming train during the winter and spring always regarded him as a rare talent, but it wasn’t until the Florida Derby that Always Dreaming even ran in a stakes race.
Forte’s lofty position is far more obvious. He’s standing tall on the chessboard, the king until someone – if that someone exists – can put him in check.