Mindframe scoring the Stephen Foster at Keeneland. (Jenny Doyle/Past The Wire)
Ready to Take on Historic Classic Field
Breeders’ Cup Closer Look
Even though Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher’s phalanx of expected starters for the $7 million Breeders’ Cup Classic shrunk by 25 percent last week, he still is expected to saddle 30 percent of the field in America’s richest race.
The announcement of the retirement of Locked to Gainesway Farm on Friday reduced Pletcher’s Classic hopefuls to three in what is regarded by many observers as one of the strongest fields in race history. Pletcher’s lineup of Grade 1 winning 4-year-olds is formidable: Antiquarian, Fierceness and Mindframe. They enter the 1 ¼-mile Classic with a combined record in 2025 of 7-3-0 from 12 starts, an eye-opening 83.3 percent in the top three – six of those victories in graded stakes – and earnings of $4,112,060.
Those numbers fit in nicely with the stats compiled by the Classic’s many standouts, including Kentucky Derby, Belmont Stakes and Travers winner Sovereignty, Japan’s international star Forever Young (JPN), Santa Anita Derby, Preakness and Haskell winner Journalism, last year’s Classic winner Sierra Leone and Pennsylvania Derby winner Baeza.
Some years, Pletcher’s trio would loom over the competition. Not so, this time around. The likely field of 10 is talented and deep with a total of 18 Grade 1 victories.
“It certainly appears as though it’s a particularly strong renewal,” Pletcher said. “I think I’d have to go back historically to go through all the charts to see which ones you could compare it to, but it’s shaping up that way, for sure.”
The 1998 Classic at Churchill Downs is often regarded as having the top field for the Breeders’ Cup’s marquee race. Awesome Again prevailed that day, completing an unbeaten season, over a group that featured future Hall of Famers Skip Away and Silver Charm, four-time Group 1 winner Swain and proven top-level winners Touch Gold, Victory Gallop and Coronado’s Quest. Awesome Again, who became a prominent sire, is in the Canadian Hall øf Fame.
This will be the 15th time that Pletcher has saddled horses in the Classic since his debut in 2002 with Harlan’s Holiday. He has had two starters six times, and this will be his first time with three. His Classic record is 1-2-1 from 20 starts, with his victory coming from Vino Rosso in 2019.
Repole Stable homebred Fierceness owns the biggest resume of Pletcher’s runners. He is 7-2-1 from 13 starts and has earned $5,155,320. He won the FanDuel Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and was the 2-year-old male division Eclipse Award winner in 2023. He followed a disappointing performance as the favorite in the Kentucky Derby with victories in the Jim Dandy and Travers at Saratoga and finished a gallant second to Sierra Leone in the Classic. This has been another big season, highlighted by victories in the Alysheba and the Pacific Classic.
Pletcher sent the City of Light colt across the country to Del Mar and kept Mindframe and Antiquarian at Saratoga for the Jockey Club Gold Cup. Fierceness overcame a wacky start in which he veered to his left toward the rail, got back into the race under John Velazquez and went on to beat Journalism. He has been training in Saratoga the past two months.
“He’s doing really well,” Pletcher said. “I thought he handled the ship to Del Mar for the Pacific Classic great and he came back in good, good order. All the preparation has gone according to plan on the days that we wanted to do it.”
Fierceness turned in a sharp 5f work in 1:00.56 over the Oklahoma training track at Saratoga on Oct. 17 and had a maintenance 4f work in 48 on Friday. He will ship from upstate New York to California with his stablemates on Sunday.
Pletcher said he stayed with the 2024 training pattern for the Classic and expects Fierceness to turn in another big performance.
“It’s encouraging that he’s run well at Del Mar twice now, and that he’s doing good,” Pletcher said.
Mindframe’s attempt to pick up a third consecutive Grade 1 victory in the Jockey Club Gold Cup on Aug. 31 was over several strides out of the gate when jockey Irad Ortiz, Jr. was knocked out of the irons in a chain reaction collision. Pletcher considered running the colt co-owned by Repole Stable and St. Elias Stables in the Woodward, which was won by Locked, but opted to train Mindframe up to the Classic. He had six breezes at Saratoga.
“His training has gone according to plan,” Pletcher said. “I thought his recent works have been particularly strong, and his gallop outs have been exceptional. We feel like we have him prepared the way we want him to. It’s not an ideal scenario to have what happened in the Jockey Club, and not get a true race out of him, but it’s the hand we’ve been dealt. And I think that we’ve done everything we can to have him as ready as we can.”
Centennial Farm’s Antiquarian added a Grade 1 victory to his growing resume in the 1 ¼-mile Jockey Club Gold Club, finishing 1 ½ lengths in front of Sierra Leone. He did not run as a 2-year-old and was away from competition from June 2024 to April 2025 because of bone bruising. He has two wins and two seconds in four starts this season.
“We always felt like he had very good potential,” Pletcher said. “We always felt like he was a horse that would naturally want to run that far. We always felt like he would improve with age and maturity. Did we know for sure that he was going to get to the Grade 1 level? We didn’t know for sure, but we felt like he was training the way that is consistent with a lot of the horses that we have been able to win Grade 1s with. I don’t think it’s been a real surprise. He showed good form last year. He was the Peter Pan winner. We were hoping that he would come back as a 4-year-old and be a little bit better than he was at 3, and that could get him a Grade 1. Turns out, that’s the way he’s responded.”
