BREEDERS' CUP WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

October 30, 2004

Eugene Melnyk

Laura Melnyk

Todd Pletcher

TODD PLETCHER: We have two more to be done. When you win any Breeders' Cup race, you are satisfied. A lot was said about the over-1 thing. Like I said earlier today, you have to show up with the right horses at the right time. We took a shot at some race horses in the past that were long shots. I didn't think they necessarily performed badly. Statistics can be a little deceiving sometimes. You have horses run wild, and just don't win it, but hopefully that monkey is off our back for good now.

MR. MELNYK: And I learned a lot from that experience with Speightstown, and that is to push a horse, whether he is not ready. We really believe that he was a 2-year-old and we pushed a little bit, and finally nature takes its course and says, "Forget about it, pack it in." We did that. We tried to rush him as a 3-year-old, and he just eventually learned the best thing to do is give the horse a chance, patience, patience, patience. I know Todd knows this, and all the trainers we work with, the moment a horse shows any sense of fatigue or distress, bring him to the farm, give him a little time. The end result is you can win a Breeders' Cup that way. I am lucky enough to have the fortune of having some great horses and the patience with the trainers on the farm and trainers (inaudible). Just give a horse time and eventually he will blossom into what you always dreamed he would be.

TODD PLETCHER: If I can jump in. There are very few owners in this business that would have had the success with Speightstown that Eugene and Lauri did because they were patient times three with this horse. Every time this horse had a little problem, Eugene said, "Give the horse time." He always believed in this horse. Very, very few people would have accomplished what Speightstown did this year, because they would have sent him off to stud. Eugene and Lauri, their patience was really why this horse was successful today and this year.

TODD PLETCHER: Today he didn't break sharply, but he didn't fall out of there. In the Vosburgh he was on his head the first three strides, couldn't get his feet up underneath him. The track was cupping away from him. He is normally an exceptionally quick horse, and a good gait horse. He didn't break as good as I thought he would, but he wasn't struggling to get his feet out. After a half-step slow break, he was up in the race fine. The difference was he broke sharply in the Vosburgh, but he was up good on the track and stayed here.

TODD PLETCHER: You get to the point where everything seems surreal when things keep happening the right way. The nature of this game is -- I feel like it's a momentum game, and yesterday when Paul won at Lone Star Derby, I was very anxious before the horse ran, and I felt a lot of tension before the Breeders' Cup race. When he ran well, I felt a sigh of relief; when we decided to ship in, when we decided to have our last breezers, paddocks, all those things you worry about as a trainer, when your first horse runs well, you feel a little sense of relief that we made the right decision on all those things. Eugene had another reason (inaudible).

MR. MELNYK: A 3-year-old finally broke in.

MR. MELNYK: It's a double, I know.

MR. MELNYK: I saw that a lot of people started talking that way after he had his last (inaudible). I Todd was absolutely satisfied with the work. There is a lot of skepticism going into a race like this after the Vosburgh. I think that what happened at the gate was obvious. It was a bit of a cuppy track. What you saw today is the real deal on this horse.

MR. MELNYK: You mean this year?

MR. MELNYK: In fact, I already sold a 50 percent interest in the horse, Winstar/Taylor venture, and the idea was -- in fact, there was more question whether we should have run him in the Vosburgh because he was undefeated in that race, and training him up to this race. This was the championship in everybody's opinion. You have to show up at this to be Champion of the Year. The only question about any racing this year, we had sat down and laid out our plan back in January for the horse. He hardly worked out until then. Vosburgh was a question and we really weren't going to run there. Always, always, always this was going to be the race of the year for us.

MR. MELNYK: For this horse? Oh, very satisfied, yes. This is what everybody dreams of as an owner, to win a championship like this, especially with a well-bred horse like Speightstown. Breeding (inaudible) a great, great career.

MR. MELNYK: Yeah. As a 2-year-old, 3-year-old, 4-year-old. I have owned, and do own very expensive horses, and at this point they are multi million dollar horses and $10,000 horses. With him I just knew from Day One he had such tremendous talent, just pure raw talent, and all we needed to do was to get him to the races and not to rush him. I think we learned after the first time, the second time and finally the third time he broke through and you saw the performance. Even if you look at the plan laid out for the horse throughout this year, the races were well-spread, spread out. This was a little tight between Vosburgh and the Breeders' Cup. It's up to your trainer to make the decision on when the horse is ready, healthy, fit, and he certainly was today.

TODD PLETCHER: Well, obviously, we are going to have a biased opinion here, but both Pico Central and Speightstown have lost one race this year. They are both of the highest quality, and what I feel like should be everyone's opinion today is the world championship. This is the race, this is a setting where you bring everybody together and lay it all on the line for a million dollars. In my eyes, this is the race that if it's close, this separates closeness. So, you know, that's the way we feel about it. Pico Central may or may not run in the mile and he may or may not win the Cigar Mile. Speightstown showed up and showed that he was the best winner of everybody that was in the world championship event.

TODD PLETCHER: I think anytime you are coming up on big races, you have a lot of anxious moments. The week before or two weeks before were not all smooth. Probably the toughest phone call I have ever made to an owner was when I had to tell James he got hurt. He just told me how excited him and his family were, and they were all pumped up coming into the Breeders' Cup. To sweep the rug out from underneath their feet, that's the tough part of my job sometimes. But we are fortunate enough to have some other shots. Like I said, I felt a lot of anxiousness, like you always do before a big event. I felt a big sigh of relief yesterday. I felt like that was a good omen.

MR. MELNYK: Thanks very much.