Shared Belief on track for strong second half of year

Trainer Jerry Hollendorfer said Tuesday that Shared Belief appeared to have come out of his Monday comeback victory fine, and that he is in the process of plotting out the remainder of the Candy Ride gelding’s 3-year-old campaign. Making his first start since December, Shared Belief defeated older horses by 4 3/4 lengths in a six-furlong allowance race on the Tapeta main track at Golden Gate Fields.

After the race and again Tuesday, Hollendorfer talked of ending the year strong.

“The Travers is a race somebody could point for,” he said regarding a possible long-term goal for Shared Belief. “I don’t know if he’d be ready for that, and we want him to be around at the end of the year.”

Asked if he had any specific plans for Shared Belief’s next start, Hollendorfer said: “I don’t know. There are a lot of races available.”

Shared Belief ran the six furlongs Monday in 1:09.78 and earned a 96 Beyer Speed Figure. Last year’s champion juvenile male, he hadn’t raced since winning the Grade 1 CashCall Futurity at Hollywood Park in December and spent the first part of this year battling a foot abscess and quarter crack.

Shared Belief went right to the lead Monday, covering the first quarter in 23.32. He covered the final quarter-mile in the same time.

“He finished good and strong and never got leg-weary,” jockey Russell Baze said after the race. “I could have gone five lengths faster. He was blowing a little bit after the wire, but after going 1:09 and change on this track, he should have been. He just moves so smooth. We were going 23 and change, but he might have been going 25, he was doing it so easily.”

Hollendorfer expected a good performance and was only surprised that Shared Belief won in wire-to-wire fashion.

“My theory is really good horses can run short or long,” he said. “The only doubt some people may have had was he had one three-quarter work, but he’d been working in company and had always galloped out well. If he hadn’t, I wouldn’t have entered him.”

Shared Belief, now 4 for 4, won his debut by seven lengths at Golden Gate, and Hollendorfer brought him back here to train for his comeback. Hollendorfer and his partners – Jim Rome’s Jungle Racing, KMN Racing, Jason Litt, Alex Solis II, and George Todaro – bought Shared Belief following his debut.

“I got no pressure at all from my partners, and I really appreciate that,” Hollendorfer said.