Todd Pletcher has won more than 5,850 races in his extraordinary training career. One stands out above the rest.
That would be the 2007 Belmont Stakes, when big-hearted Rags to Riches became only the third filly to win the famed “Test of the Champion” and the first since Tanya in 1905.
Is it talent; the raw ability that gives an athlete the ability to excel in their sport? Is it accomplishments; the record of achievements that their talent enables them to compile? Or is it something else entirely; an innate desire to perform as well as possible and give your all every time you compete?
Allen E. Paulson and his family are no doubt best known in Thoroughbred racing for owning the great champion Cigar, one of the sport’s most brilliant males.
When Curlin retired to stud in 2008, hopes were high that the 2007 Preakness Stakes and Breeders’ Cup Classic winner, who was also third in the Kentucky Derby and second in the Belmont Stakes, could produce horses that would follow in his hoofprints and win route dirt races at the highest level.
