BALTIMORE _ Todd Pletcher knows that the world regards him as some kind of horse training android.
It doesn't matter that he fell in love with racing as a young boy in Texas, tending to horses trained by his encouraging father, J.J.
It doesn't matter that he's a family man who had his eldest son, Payton, by his side the first time he walked Kentucky Derby champion Always Dreaming to the track at Pimlico Race Course in preparation for the Preakness.
The man living out his boyhood ambitions or the middle-aged dad nudging his son to attend veterinary school might make excellent characters in someone else's success story. But Pletcher _ a private soul despite his status as the most decorated trainer of his generation _ has chosen a different narrative.
He isn't gruff or wry or combative or folksy or any of the words we associate with the giants who preceded him in the training game.
What he is _ whether he's accommodating rich and powerful owners, answering media queries or supervising an operation that extends up and down the East Coast _ is professional. Absolutely, unrelentingly professional.
Pletcher's reserved persona is as much a deliberate choice as every other detail of his business, which he's run from a makeshift office beside Always Dreaming's stall at Pimlico for the last week.
"I don't think I'm as emotionless as I'm accused of being at times," the 49-year-old New York resident says. "But at the same time, it's a competitive business, and you don't want to gloat too much when you win or cry too much when you lose, at least not in public."
And if that's not an approach that inspires poetic reveries, so be it. It works awfully well in keeping the winningest machine in the sport on the rails.
Pletcher-trained horses start between 800 and 1,200 times a year, win about a quarter of their races and finish in the top three more than half the time. He's achieved those results with numbing consistency _ unmatched by rivals such as Bob Baffert or Steve Asmussen _ for 15 years.
