Belmont: Orb gets back on track training towards Travers

Kentucky Derby winner Orb, who was sent to the Fair Hill Training Center in Maryland the day after the Belmont Stakes, returned to the track Friday, jogging over the facility’s dirt surface.

Trainer Shug McGaughey said Orb was to begin galloping Saturday and would likely return to Belmont in a week or so.

“All reports are good,” McGaughey said. “I planned on bringing him up here, but I spoke to Bruce [Jackson] for a good while and Bruce was so high on how he was doing down there we decided to keep him there.”

Bruce Jackson, a former trainer, oversees the operations at the Fair Hill facility, which includes a hyperbaric chamber. McGaughey said that Orb did spend some time in that chamber, in which a horse intakes pure oxygen, helping heal any damaged cells.

McGaughey said that Jennifer Patterson, Orb’s regular exercise rider, has been visiting family in Delaware and would likely start getting on Orb over the weekend.

Orb, who finished fourth in the Preakness and third in the Belmont Stakes, is being pointed to a summer campaign at Saratoga, the primary objective being the Travers Stakes on Aug. 24.