Pletcher Settles For Hat Trick

- Three more winners for Pletcher at Gulfstream on Saturday, all in a row, including a stakes win in the middle with Twilight Meteor in the grassy Hallandale Beach Stakes, at odds of 6.50-to-1, man! Sometimes you get an overlay when Pletcher has two in the race, and the one without Johnny V. wins. While Velazquez was taking the overland route on the final turn with Pleasant Strike, Edgar Prado sat chilly behind horses while saving ground, and got a clear trip down the two path to wear down the leader Sedgefield. Not a flashy performance, but he got the trip, and got the job done in his first race in nearly four months. In five starts, he has three wins, a nose loss, and a close 4th in an extremely roughly run allowance at Saratoga.

Twilight Meteor is out of One Over Prime, an unraced mare by the graded turf winner With Approval, and a half-sister to Citronnade, a graded winner on the grass for Frankel earlier this year.

Pletcher started the streak in the 6th with first-timer, and 2-1 favorite Hesogoodwithmoney, his second debut winner in two days. He's a son of Forest Wildcat, out of a Deputy Minister half-sister to High Yield, who sold for $350,000 as a yearling in 2005.

The trainer completed the natural hat trick with Trendy Lady, who burned a ton of money in her last three, but was an easy winner for the persistent chalk players who sent her off at 7-10.

And incredibly, Pletcher just missed a four-bagger when Honey Ryder, now a six-year old making her first start since November and her first ever against the boys, settled for second in the Grade 1 Gulfstream Park BC Turf at one mile and three eighths. Maybe she was just a bit short off the layoff, as she had an absolutely perfect trip, saving ground all the way, and then exploding through a seam with an exciting burst of speed. However, Jambalaya (Langfuhr) also saved ground, right in front of Pletcher's 2-1 favorite before swinging wide and getting up to beat her by a neck.

But Einstein, a half length back in third, ran an absolute monster race and was much the best. He was three wide on the first turn, four wide on the second, and way, way wide on the turn for home. He actually struck the front midstretch, at which point he may have already run the mile and three-eighths, but he couldn't quite hold off the two who traveled far, far less ground.