"The scoreboard of late has been in Pletcher’s favor. He currently is the top trainer in North America with nearly $12 million in purse earnings. His 26 victories here, at the most competitive and prestigious meet of the summer, top the standings, and he is two victories out of first place at Monmouth. To spend a day with him is to appreciate up close an extraordinary feat of choreography, in which high-tech wizardry is as necessary as plain old horse sense, and where gallows humor, straight talk and a little Spanish all must be deftly employed. Over the course of a single day -- Aug. 13 -- Pletcher touched 100 horses and oversaw the training of another hundred working at tracks up and down the East Coast."

"To me, it’s the most satisfying win I had," Pletcher said at Wednesday’s draw for Saturday’s 143rd Belmont in which he will run 20-1 shot Stay Thirsty. "To me, it was the most exciting race I won, just the stretch-long duel. When you look back it as far as fillies go and then you look at what she did in that race and what Curlin accomplished after that, to me it was as good as a filly has ever run."