Shared Belief begins jogging toward 2016 comeback

ARCADIA, Calif. – Shared Belief, the champion 2-year-old male of 2013, will resume training at Golden Gate Fields in early November, moving closer to an expected comeback in early 2016.

Trainer Jerry Hollendorfer said on Wednesday that Shared Belief is jogging two miles a day at the Pegasus Training Center in Washington state under the direction of trainer Mike Puhich. Shared Belief has not raced since being pulled up in the Charles Town Classic in West Virginia in April with a hip injury.

Hollendorfer said he would wait until he returns from the Breeders’ Cup at Keeneland before having Shared Belief sent to his stable at Golden Gate Fields. Shared Belief has trained for most of his career on the Tapeta Footings synthetic surface at Golden Gate Fields.

When Shared Belief arrives in California, he will have progressed to galloping on a daily basis at Pegasus, Hollendorder said.

“Our plan is to gallop him a few days up there at Pegasus just to make sure that he’ll be okay to come down to Golden Gate Fields,” Hollendorfer said.

Hollendorfer said he does not have a comeback race in mind for Shared Belief, but a race in early 2016 is likely.

“We don’t have a timetable,” he said. “Ideally, if he could resume a regular training program, that would be a possibility in the first quarter of the year.”

Owned by a partnership that includes sports commentator Jim Rome, Shared Belief has won 10 of 12 starts and earned $2,932,200. He has won eight stakes. Aside from the Charles Town race, his only loss was a fourth-place finish after a bumping incident in a controversial running of the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita last November.

Earlier this year, Shared Belief won two stakes – the $590,000 San Antonio Stakes in February, beating 2014 Horse of the Year California Chrome, and the $1 million Santa Anita Handicap in March.