| Manager: J.J. Pletcher
Assistant Manager: Terri Lamebranb
Veterinarian: Dr. Chip Estes
Office Manager & Assistant: Bonnie Kash
Farrier: Alan Gardner
Dentist: Tom Guilderland 
Facility encompasses 80 acres and 96 stalls. Training track is
5/8 mile with wide, sweeping curves to accommodate young legs.
Each turn measures 700 feet from inner rail to inner rail, creating
a gentle curve radius of 350 feet. Two eight-horse free walkers
are 100-foot diameter enclosed and capable of accommodating eight
horses.
Jake “J.J.” Pletcher figures he’ll go to bed
tonight as soon as he can. After all, his wake-up call came somewhere
around 3:00 this morning, and he’s been running hard ever
since.
No, J.J. isn’t a trucker or a newspaper reporter or the short-order cook
who works the night shift at Denny’s. He’s not a private investigator
or a double agent or an airline pilot manning an early morning flight out of
Orlando.
His days start out far more exciting than that.
J.J. Pletcher is the owner, founder and head trainer of the 80-acre, 96-stall
exclusive Payton Training Center in Ocala, Florida. Thoroughbreds start galloping
on his track by 5:00 every morning, but even before that, J.J. is up, walking
the barns, checking in. Making sure all 125 high-profile, expensive and talented
young Thoroughbred racehorses under his care are present, accounted for and
healthy.
“The key to breaking yearlings is not letting them get hurt!” says
J.J., whose life has been all about racehorses and racehorse training for 41
years now. “You have to be very careful with them. If you’re handling
such valuable property, you can’t just put anyone in the world on them
or around them, and have them go off and kick them in the belly. You’ve
got to be very careful how you handle these horses so they don’t get hurt.”
J.J. jokes, but he’s serious. He knows that at any given moment, the
yearlings he receives for training each fall could colic, twist an ankle, be
bitten by a toxic spider, or receive an injury. So J.J. worries over them,
hires the best veterinarians, farriers and dentists, feeds them the best feed
and hay he can find and designs his entire facility so that he can see nearly
everything that happens on the grounds.
Some of the yearlings under his care are sired by stallions with $500,000 stud
fees, and one colt this year was purchased for $1.6 million prior to arriving
at Payton.
“
Nobody beats me here in the mornings – I’m here by 4:00,” J.J.
says. “I meet the night watchman when he gets off duty at 4, and he gives
me a report on everything that happened with the horses the night before.”
Yearlings arrive at Payton Training Center around September 1, and typically
stay in training until approximately May 1, assuming nothing goes wrong. When
horses leave J.J., they usually ship straight to the track.
“
We have about eight really good riders, and we’re galloping around 100
every morning,” J.J. says. “We start at 5:00 in the dark. A few
older horses are here in training getting ready to go back to the track, so
they go first.”
By 10:30 a.m., the galloping is done. Most of Payton’s 35 employees go
home from 11:30 until 1:30, then afternoons are set aside for more grooming
and other chores around the barn.
“We try to treat our horses like they’re at the racetrack,” J.J.
says. “All horses are groomed in the afternoon, and a daytime watchman
monitors in case they are colicking or get cast in the stall. For the first couple
of months they’re here, we take temps every morning and afternoon, so if
they have something coming on, we usually catch it pretty quick.”
Higher Education
Learning curves for young Thoroughbred racehorses are steep. Most
yearlings have been handled well enough by the time they get
to Payton, but the bar is raised once they begin training under
saddle.
“
It’s kind of like the horses go from first grade to eighth
grade – all in six months,” J.J. says.
Payton Training Center starts horses under saddle much like any
other facility. For the first five to seven days, colts and fillies
are taught to ground drive. Then, they are ridden in a round pen
for roughly three or four days.
“
After that, we ride them in the paddock until they’re ready
to go to the track,” J.J. says. “Some are ready faster
than others. First, we’re trying to teach them to go out
there, relax, and not be afraid of anything. They should be able
to gallop with horses coming toward them, going away and all. We’ll
start breezing them in February – that’s when we’ll
first start letting them get some speed.”
Just the Beg inning
Payton Training Center, named after the first grandson of J.J.
and his wife, Joan, was established in 1999. The facility is
set up exquisitely and specifically to break and train Thoroughbred
racehorses.
“We filled the place up the first year, and every year since, we’ve
been over-full,” J.J. says. “We train to race. We don’t do
any pinhooking or getting horses ready for sale, unless the owner decides later
they’d like to sell. But our owners almost always plan to race.”
Recognizable trainers who partner with Payton Training Center hail from Kentucky
or New York, and some include David Donk, Rusty Arnold, George Weaver and Vicki
and Phil Oliver. J.J. also receives a sizeable percentage of training horses
via his son, Todd Pletcher, one of Thoroughbred racing’s most sought-after
and successful  trainers. In 1999, Todd trained third-place winner Impeachment
and fourth-place winner More Than Ready to place fourth in the Kentucky Derby.
In 2002, Todd trained Invisible Ink to win second in the Kentucky Derby.
For 25 years, J.J., originally from a tiny town 100 miles west of San Antonio,
Texas, trained Quarter Horse and Thoroughbred racehorses, mostly in the Midwest.
Todd was always right behind his dad, taking in the sights, listening and absorbing
the lingo and leather time like a big sponge.
“Todd learned a lot from me, then he went to University of Arizona and
got an animal science degree, plus took racetrack management course,” J.J.
says. “He was a good horseman even before he went with Wayne.”
The “Wayne,” J.J. refers to is, of course, is the notable Hall
of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lucas, whom Todd worked under for six years. In 1999,
Todd set out on his own, and he’s currently the leading trainer of 3-year-olds
in New York by wins. On the fast track to success, Todd set the record for
most victories at a Saratoga meet when he won 35 races at the 2003 meet. He
also set the record for most victories at a Belmont spring and fall meets in
2003. According to the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, Todd Pletcher’s
earnings through September 28, 2003, exceed $9.5 million.
Todd now lives in Garden City, New York, with his wife, Tracy, whom J.J. describes
as “a sweetheart,” and their two sons, Payton and Kyle, and daughter
Hannah.
“We thought at that time he was born that he would be our only grandchild!” Joan
says, explaining that they named Payton Training Center after their firstborn
grandson. “But then, we had another grandson… and then our granddaughter.”
“Yeah, it almost got me in trouble, us naming the place after Payton,” J.J.
says. “But here recently I’ve started naming horses after our other
grandchildren!”
“I’m 66 years old now,” J.J. continues, admitting he likes
to golf in his spare time. “I guess I could retire if I wanted to. I’ve
been training horses for 41 years. I figure I’m going to start thinking
about doing nothing one of these days.”
Then again, retirement doesn’t seem to fit the schedule of a man who
wakes up at 3:00 every morning.
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