Grade 1 Winner Little Mike Jogging at Palm Meadows

Multiple Grade 1-winning Florida-bred Little Mike has returned to the track for a possible comeback in 2016.

Bred and trained by Carlo Vaccarezza for his wife, Priscilla, Little Mike jogged for the first time Wednesday over the main track at Palm Meadows, Gulfstream Park’s satellite training facility in Palm Beach County.

The gelded bay son of Spanish Steps has not raced since winning the Flying Pidgeon Stakes on May 17, 2014 at Gulfstream Park.

"He’s back. We tack-walked him for two weeks and he just jogged the wrong way. We’ll probably do that for two or three weeks and we’ll see. He’ll tell us when he’s ready to start galloping,” Vaccarezza said. “He looks phenomenal. He looks really, really, really good. Let’s hope the time we gave him will pay off. You never know until you start to put a little pressure on them.”

Little Mike, who turns 9 on New Year’s Day, has 14 wins and $3,543,012 in purse earnings from 29 lifetime starts including the 2012 Breeders’ Cup Turf (G1). His other Grade 1 wins came in the Turf Classic and Arlington Million in 2012 and Joe Hirsch Turf Classic in 2013.

Five weeks after finishing seventh in defense of his Breeders’ Cup Turf title, Little Mike ran ninth in the 2013 Hong Kong Cup (G1). He was off five months before returning in the Flying Pidgeon but has dealt with assorted physical issues since the victory that looked to have him headed to retirement.

“The horse didn’t come back too well from Hong Kong. Then I ran him in the Flying Pidgeon and he won that day. He's been off for almost two years. He’s lightly raced, let’s put it that way. He’s a young 9, and he’s a late May foal, anyway,” Vaccarezza said.

“We’ll see. One thing for sure, I’m not going to do anything to jeopardize the horse. He’ll tell us. If I see that he doesn’t come back well from either a gallop or a breeze, I will definitely retire him.”

When that time comes, Vaccarezza said he has an arrangement to send Little Mike to Old Friends in Georgetown, Ky. The trainer would love to see Little Mike’s comeback happen at Gulfstream Park, where he has won six of eight lifetime starts, five of them in stakes including the Fort Lauderdale (G3), Canadian Turf (G3) and Appleton (G3) in 2011 and 2012 Sunshine Millions Turf.