Aug 292009
Before I start to extoll the virtues of a small trainer from a small circuit with a small pool of owners with a small horse … let me take a second to make 2 points very very very clear:
#1- Can we all stop with the “Quality Road for President” bumper stickers? Ok, so none were actually printed (at least that I’ve seen), but people need to realize that he’s not going to be Champion 3yo. He’s got the same shot at it as I Want Revenge and/or Dunkirk right now – hey, maybe they can all three share it? Seriously, though, Quality Road is a good racehorse (record is now 6-4-1-1), but he’s a sprinter – let him be a sprinter (same with Warrior’s Reward for that matter). Now Champion Sprinter next year? Those are honors I can see either QR or WR taking … easily!
#2- We had a great Travers without the Derby and Preakness winners. With the way everyone was talking, you’d have thought that was an impossible feat. Mine That Bird: Oh, the horror of a trainer not taking his star off antibiotics just because there’s a race! Rachel Alexandra: Oh, the insanity of a trainer choosing a different spot for his horse because she could be the best in the world and he wants to prove it! But it did happen and anyone who wants to say otherwise can cash my winning tickets. It was a very evenly matched field – you had 6 stakes winners combined for 10 graded stakes (2xG1, 7xG2, 3xG1) and could make a case for literally every horse to win (and the one no one had faith in – Hold Me Back – astonishes for second). It was a good race on paper, it proved to be a good race as they ran, and it will be a good race to look back on.
So back to Summer Bird.
According to the National Weather Service’s Hurricane Center, this year has seen one of the lowest instances of tropical depressions on record (don’t believe me? click here). Well, the 2009 hurricane season officially started on June 1 and someone apparently told this to Tim Ice and his Summer Bird.
After a dismal trip left him 6th in the Kentucky Derby, Summer Bird comes back a month later in the Belmont and simply takes flight. For those who thought “the other Birdstone” was just a flash in the pan (if you can call a G1 winner such a thing), he’s proving his salt time and time again – the Belmont was followed by a shocking all-but on the lead 2nd in the Haskell and now a very nice win in yet another G1.
As my friend Jennie Rees of Louisville’s Courier-Journal pointed out, Summer Bird is the only 2xG1 winner of the 3yo crop. That says something. Ok, that says a lot in my book. This is by no means a stellar crop of horses (personally, I count 2007 as the last of the really good ones: Street Sense, Hard Spun, Indian Blessing, etc.), but a sub-spectacular crop pretty much ensures very evenly matched racing, so for a horse to get 3 great races in a row (let alone win the 2 biggest) means something. Now that doesn’t mean I think we’ll be calling Summer Bird one of the sport’s best in 20 years – but so far he’s proving to be one of the best of his generation and that ain’t easy to do.
The Kentucky Derby is a lot of horses, a lot of jostling, a lot of noise – all things that can do great mental damage to a horse.
But congrats to Tim Ice for seeing that, indeed, his horse was different after the Kentucky Derby. And even bigger congrats for turning him into the Horse of the Summer.
Now the inevitable question: Can he turn Summer Bird into the Horse of the Year (or at least 3yo Champion)?
