A Breeders' Cup winner on turf, Sharing aims for Kentucky Oaks

While Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf winner Sharing will return on the lawn to open her 2020 season, trainer Graham Motion said an attempt at qualifying for the Kentucky Oaks on dirt is “something we’ll consider.”

Sharing, the Maryland-bred daughter of two Breeders’ Cup champs themselves — the sire Speightstown and dam Shared Account — is at south Florida's Palm Meadows training center for the winter, where she’ll begin galloping after Christmas and is expected to work in January.

Motion is pointing Sharing first to the Grade 3, $200,000 Florida Oaks on Tampa Bay Downs’ turf. That 1 1/16-mile race runs March 7.

“We want to start off the grass and use her next race as an experiment if we’d like to,” he said, with an array of major Kentucky Oaks preps available to choose from.

Sharing ran third on debut July 21 at Saratoga, then clicked off three straight victories, breaking her maiden at the Spa, winning Laurel Park’s Selima Stakes and upsetting the Juvenile Fillies Turf at 13.8-1.

“She’s always handled the dirt well,” Motion said. “To be honest, had I started her in Maryland rather than at Saratoga, I probably would have run her on the dirt. I think she would have been fine against not quite as tough of competition first time out.”

Sharing, who broke alertly in the Breeders’ Cup, never ran far from the lead on Nov. 1 at Santa Anita Park. Positioned between horses until off the turn, she drove by outside of Sweet Melania and held European rival Daahyeh at bay for a 1 1/4-length victory that had Motion quite emotional.

“This was our goal after she broke her maiden at Saratoga — to point for that race,” he said. “Anytime things work out and fall into place — everything went perfectly, and she didn’t miss a beat — there’s a certain amount of extra satisfaction when things like that work out.

“I think the added fact that she was out of one of my favorite mares I ever trained made it that much more special.”

The $1.6 million earner Shared Account won multiple graded stakes for Motion, including the 2010 Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf at Churchill Downs. Speightstown, meanwhile, took his championship race around one turn in the 2004 Breeders’ Cup Sprint.

A Maryland-bred campaigned by Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners and Antony Beck’s Gainesway Stable, Sharing has banked $730,000 herself in opening her career 3-for-4.

Chad Brown-trained Structor, who on the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf, is also expected to switch surfaces in 2020 with aims of contending in the Kentucky Derby.