Pletcher Team Update, Antiquarian and Fierceness Head to Classic

[Wandering Eyes]

Facing plenty of racing dram this past weekend, trainer Todd Pletcher confirmed that GI Pacific Classic and GI Jockey Club Gold Cup winners Fierceness (City of Light) and Antiquarian (Preservationist), respectively, came out of their races in good order and will train up to the GI Breeders' Cup Classic at Del Mar.

The Gold Cup was marred by an incident soon after the start, where Pletcher-trained Mindframe (Constitution) swerved, dropping Irad Ortiz Jr. and was ultimately collared by the outrider.

“[Antiquarian] is doing excellent, very good,” Pletcher said of the Gold Cup scorer. “I thought that was a great performance. He is steadily improving. I thought that was his best race to date. He is kind of learning how to polish a race off, so we are very happy for him. We'll train up to the Classic.”

As for Antiquarian's less fortunate stablemate, Pletcher added,

“He's excellent, he seems fine,” Pletcher said. “We got lucky that he's unscathed. An unlucky race, but lucky that he is OK.”

He added, “We are just happy he came out of the race [Sunday] well. We'll regroup and come up with a plan for him.”

Saturday's Pacific Classic had its own share of drama when Fierceness veered toward the temporary rail but recovered to win with ease over GI Preakness and Haskell winner Journalism.

“He came back well. He will ship back here on the third and we'll point him for the Classic as well,” Pletcher said. “To simply overcome the start alone, and that mistake he made there that we felt might leave him with no chance, he recovered to run a big race. We are proud of him.”

Pletcher has a trio of contenders for the Classic, which he won in 2019 with Repole Stable and St. Elias Stables' Vino Rosso.

“We feel good about that now, but it is 60 days away,” Pletcher said. Hopefully, everything stays in order.”

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