Jerry Hollendorfer

During his teenage years in Akron, Ohio, Hollendorfer learned his racing lessons at Acton Park in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. The track is long gone, but Hollendorfer, a Hall of Fame inductee in 2011, continues on. He is the dominant trainer in Northern California and consistently develops national-caliber graded stakes horses. Hollendorfer became the fourth trainer in history to reach the 6,000-win milestone, on September 3, 2011 and currently ranks third on the all-time wins list, with more than 7,000 career wins.

Hollendorfer's graded staked winner list includes King Glorious, his first two Kentucky Oaks winners - Lite Light and Pike Place Dancer, Event of the Year, Tuscan Evening, Heatseeker, Kentucky Oaks winner Blind Luck and Breeders' Cup winner Dakota Phone. His two most recent successes are the late Shared Belief, champion 2-year-old male of 2013, and Songbird, the undefeated 2015 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies winner who was also named champion 2-year-old filly. Songbird suffered her first defeat in 12 starts in the 2016 Breeders' Cup Distaff at the hands of three-time champion older mare Beholder, losing by a nose.

Hollendorfer secured his third victory at the Breeders' Cup World Championships in 2017 when Battle of Midway reeled in Sharp Azteca in the Del Mar stretch to prevail in the Las Vegas Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile.

Hollendorfer's racing career started during a visit to San Francisco when he was in his early 20s. He talked his way into the backstretch at Bay Meadows and talked his way into a job with trainer Jerry Dutton. He later worked for Jerry Fanning and began saddling horses in his own name in 1979.