OZONE PARK, N.Y. – A plan hatched roughly 18 months ago will come to fruition for Amelia Green next month when the current assistant to Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher begins training on her own. Green, 31, a former jockey, has worked for Pletcher for about seven years. She has been an exercise rider, foreman, and traveling assistant. She has been on and/or worked with such notable runners as Life Is Good, Malathaat, Nest, and Audible just to name a few. “I’ve been very lucky in the seven years I’ve been with Todd,” Green said recently. “I could work for Todd for another 10 years and I’d love my job every single day, but it’s not ultimately what I want to do, it’s not my dream. So there came a time I had to decide to do it.” :: Bet the races with a $200 First Deposit Match + FREE All Access PPs! Join DRF Bets. Green, who is currently overseeing Pletcher’s string at Keeneland, plans to get her trainer’s license shortly after this year’s Breeders’ Cup, which will be held Nov. 1-2 at Del Mar. Green plans to have stalls at Belmont for the fall/winter and hopes to have anywhere from 10 to 15 head to start. Green was fortunate to secure some future prospects at the Keeneland September yearling sale, coming away with six horses, four for one client who preferred not to be named and two for EGL ONE, the racing operation of Eric, Glo, and Larry Bensussen. Green said it was at the end of 2022 that she first approached Pletcher about her desire to go out on her own. Together, they agreed Green could benefit from some more experience and they set a target date for this fall. “When I first approached him about it, it was more asking his opinion on timing-wise,” Green said. “It’s not like we had the discussion this is when you know enough to go on your own. It was more like we’ll do it together, and he helped me and now he’s sent me off.”   Green has spent the last two years overseeing satellite strings for Pletcher. Last year, Green was in Kentucky year-round. This summer, she oversaw the Belmont Park string during the Saratoga meet and has been at Kentucky Downs and now Keeneland this fall. Green will be at the Breeders’ Cup with Pletcher’s runners. Green, a native of England, said she got into racing at age 16. Green worked for trainer Sir Henry Cecil for four years, riding races for him as an apprentice. Green said Cecil sent her to California one winter “and I fell in love with California racing.” Green went back to England in the spring of 2013 and worked for Cecil until he died that June. Green returned to California and began riding races, winning with her first U.S mount, Twin Six, on Dec. 13, 2013, at Hollywood Park. Green would ride through the fall of 2015, winning nine races from 148 mounts, spending most of 2015 at Laurel in Maryland. “I liked food a little bit too much to make jockey weight; that wasn’t a realistic lifestyle for me,” said Green, who returned to Southern California to work as an assistant to George Papaprodromou. In 2017, Green went to work for Pletcher. Among the first horses she started galloping was Audible, the 2018 Florida Derby winner who finished third behind Justify and Good Magic in that year’s Kentucky Derby. Green was the regular exercise rider for Malathaat, a six-time Grade 1 winner and two-time champion. She rode Nest, another champion, one summer. In 2021, when Life Is Good was transferred to Pletcher, she became the regular exercise rider for that horse, a powder-keg of a horse who she was able to tame in the mornings. Life Is Good won four Grade 1 stakes for Pletcher. “I think she was a big part of him running as consistently well as he did,” Pletcher said. “She was a great assistant, very good rider. I think she’ll do very well.” Green said while she’s learned a lot in the 18 months since she first informed Pletcher of her intention to train on her own, she knows there’s more to learn. “I don’t think you ever stop learning,” Green said. “I could stay here for the next five years and I’m pretty sure I’d learn something every day. But there comes a point if this is what I want to do, I have to just do it. I just turned 31 years old, I know I’m still pretty young in the racing industry, but I think it’s time. I feel ready for the next step.” :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.