Super Saver set for run at history
BALTIMORE — Days before Todd Pletcher won his first Kentucky Derby with Super Saver, thus becoming the only trainer with a shot at the elusive Triple Crown this year, a handful of reporters stood outside his barn at Churchill Downs and asked him if he could think of a comparable feat in another sport.
Pletcher mulled the question for a few seconds before finally settling on his answer.
"Probably (Joe DiMaggio's) 56-game hitting streak," he said. "But even then, after the Derby, only one horse has a chance at doing it. I think it's got to rank up there as one of the toughest things in sports."
Pletcher didn't know at the time that the Triple Crown burden would be his this year, but thanks to a smooth trip by Super Saver and a perfect ride by jockey Calvin Borel, the collective hopes of the horse racing world are his to bear this year. Super Saver, a 5-2 favorite in the Preakness Stakes, is considered a 7-1 choice to win both the Preakness and the Belmont.
It's been 32 years since Affirmed became the last horse to win the Derby, Preakness and Belmont, and for whatever reason, no one has been able to crack the code since. There have been horses who looked like they might pull it off — Real Quiet, War Emblem, Smarty Jones and Big Brown to name a few — but no horse has been able to close the deal. Eight times in the last 13 years a horse has gone to the Belmont having won the first two legs and come up short.
It's become such a tall order, Borel even raised a few eyebrows after the Derby victory when he predicted that Super Saver was going to be the next horse to make it happen. But it was also seen as one more example of how badly the industry wants it to happen.
Pletcher, though he rarely runs his horses with less than a month of rest, admits he's somewhat conflicted about doing anything to change a setup that essentially has been unchanged for more than a century.
"I'm a traditionalist," Pletcher said. "If we changed the Triple Crown and spread the races out more — a month between the Derby and Preakness, and then five weeks to the Belmont — you could argue that more horses would be able to participate. And the winner is probably going to have a better chance of repeating. I think it would probably generate more Triple Crown winners that way. But it wouldn't be the same Triple Crown. It wouldn't be nearly as prestigious."
But Lukas, Pletcher's mentor, has said for years he'd welcome a change — either to the schedule or the field.
"Did the 3-point shot ruin basketball?" Lukas said this week, when asked about Pletcher's comments.
