NEW YORK TO THE BREEDERS' CUP: QUALITY ROAD AND LIFE AT TEN

**This is part of a series that profiles the top New York-based contenders heading to the Breeders’ Cup. Please see the attached photos of Quality Road and Life At Ten. Credit NYRA, Adam Coglianese**

 

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

 

Contact: Jon Forbes

jforbes@nyrainc.com

 

NEW YORK TO THE BREEDERS’ CUP: QUALITY ROAD AND LIFE AT TEN

 

ELMONT, N.Y. – For trainer Todd Pletcher, starts in the Breeders’ Cup by Quality Road and Life At Ten have been a long time coming.

 

After Quality Road was scratched at the starting gate for last year’s Breeders’ Cup Classic, Pletcher put together a long-range plan to give the Edward P. Evans homebred another chance at competing in North America’s richest race, and he will likely be one of the favorites when he heads postward on November 6. Candy DeBartolo’s Life At Ten, meanwhile, was eligible for the first allowance condition one year ago, but now stands among the leading contenders for the Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic on November 5.

 

Given a brief break following his jettisoned attempt at competing in the 2009 Classic, Quality Road returned to the races in style with emphatic victories in the Grade 3 Hal’s Hope and Grade 1 Donn Handicap at Gulfstream. Pletcher knew exactly where he wanted the 4-year-old colt to make his next three starts, and they were all Grade 1 races in New York: the Metropolitan Handicap on Labor Day, the Whitney on August 7, and the Woodward over Labor Day weekend.

 

“We laid out a schedule last November after we decided to not run in the Cigar Mile,” said Pletcher. “The Donn is biggest race for older horses at Gulfstream, and we thought the Met Mile, from a stallion-making perspective, was a key race. Obviously the Whitney and Woodward are some of the most significant races on the East Coast for older horses. We thought he could compete in those races and remain in peak form.”

 

After winning the Met Mile at Belmont in 1:33.11, tied for the second-quickest time in the race’s history, Quality Road led in deep stretch of the Whitney Handicap at Saratoga before he was tagged late by Blame, who got up by a head. Returning from that runner-up effort four weeks later in the Woodward, Quality Road made amends with a facile 4 ¾-length success, with Blame bypassing the race in favor of the Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup Invitational.

 

“Knock on wood, apart from coming up a head short in the Whitney, everything has gone according to plan,” said Pletcher.

 

Pletcher is confident Quality Road’s gate problems are part of the past and that he’ll cap his already stellar career with a victory in the Classic.

 

“He has been very well behaved at the gate so far,” said Pletcher. “It’s something we’ll continue to work on to be sure, but it speaks a lot of his mental toughness that he could basically put that horrific event at Santa Anita behind him. His record at this point speaks for itself. He is a horse where you could make a case that he’d be the favorite in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint and the Dirt Mile, and one of the favorites for the Breeders’ Cup Classic, which speaks of his ability and versatility.”

 

Pletcher said he had high expectations for Life At Ten after she was acquired privately following a second in her debut in November 2007, but the filly underperformed at first, which the trainer largely attributed to synthetic race tracks. After finishing second in two allowance races on the dirt at Saratoga and seventh over yielding turf at Belmont, Life At Ten commenced her turnaround with a victory in an allowance at the Aqueduct last November.

 

“We were a little bit frustrated at Saratoga last summer because she worked extremely well and then finished second twice,” said Pletcher. “Being out of a Rahy mare we thought we should try her on the grass, and that didn’t go well. We ended up running her in a six-furlong one-other-than because the longer race didn’t fill, and she came from off the pace and won. And from that point on, everything fell into place.”

 

Following her allowance victory with a pair of stakes scores over the inner track at the Big A, Life At Ten then continued her upward ascent by taking the Grade 3 Sixty Sails Handicap at Hawthorne, the Grade 1 Ogden Phipps Handicap at Belmont, and the Grade 2 Delaware Handicap at Delaware Park. A third-place finish in the Grade 1 Personal Ensign at Saratoga snapped her six-race winning streak, but Pletcher places none of the blame on his filly, who dueled early with Rachel Alexandra before yielding in the stretch.

 

“She has pretty much been perfect all year, with the exception of the Personal Ensign where we made a tactical error,” said Pletcher. “We made an aggressive play to take the race to Rachel Alexandra, and it certainly backfired.”

 

Life At Ten exited her strenuous effort in the Personal Ensign in good shape, and Pletcher saw no reason to not wheel her back five weeks later in Belmont’s Grade 1 Beldame on October 2, a race she’d go on to win by two lengths over Unrivaled Belle.

 

“We were confident she was back on her ‘A’ game, and for whatever reason I don’t think Saratoga is her favorite surface,” said Pletcher.

 

With the Breeders’ Cup now just nine days away, Pletcher realizes his wait is nearly over.

 

“We’re not there yet,” said Pletcher. “But we’re one step closer after this week.”

 

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