Breeders Cup Betting – Summer Bird Preview
Trainer Tim Ice isn’t known throughout racing circles the way that some of his peers are. That’s quite alright by him. After all, he just got his racing license about two years ago and Summer Bird is his only charge. It’s difficult to have a big head as a trainer when you only have one horse in your stable.
What a horse though. Summer Bird is easily one of the top horses going into the Breeders’ Cup Classic. There’s just no other way to describe the Travers and Belmont Stakes winner of 2009. Ice has done about as good of a job bringing Summer Bird up to the Breeders’ Cup Classic as any horse being brought up to a race in recent memory. The fact that his arch nemesis, the super filly Rachel Alexandra, won’t be running in the Classic means that Summer Bird will go off the favorite in the race and win as the favorite.
Let’s take a look at Summer Bird’s progression up to this point. It’s a terrific study in how thoroughbred trainers get their horses ready to peak at the exact right moment.
Summer Bird was born in April of 2006 in Kentucky. He was bred by the retired cardiologist Dr. Kalarikkal Jayaraman and his wife retired pathologist Dr. Vilasini Jayaraman. The good doctor and his good doctor wife bred Summer Bird at their farm in Ocala, Florida. Summer Bird is the son of Kentucky Derby winner Grindstone. His dam is the mare Hong Kong Squall, herself a daughter of Preakness winner Summer Squall.
Summer Bird’s bloodlines are exceptional. On his dad’s side are both Unbridled and the brilliant Northern Dancer. On his mother’s side are the great Alydar and the even greater Secretariat. His mother’s father, Alysheba, a son of Alydar, won the Kentucky Derby in the late 1980’s.
Good breeding obviously gave Tim Ice something to work with, but the trainer still had to get Summer Bird to where he is today, on the verge of winning the Breeders’ Cup Classic. How did he do that?
Summer Bird first showed signs of possible greatness when losing the Arkansas Derby. Summer Bird went 5 wide at the quarter pole and, once he switched leads, was gaining on both Old Fashioned and Papa Clem, but he just ran out of real estate. He ran past both of those after crossing the finish line. It was a huge, huge race for Summer Bird who showed that he had a ton of upside.
His next race, the Kentucky Derby, was actually a much better run than it looked at first. He finished 6th, losing to his half-brother Mine That Bird by 13 lengths, but while Mine That Bird took the inside on his way to Derby glory, Summer Bird went 7 wide around the final turn. It was a breathtaking move that came up short. On that day, the inside was playing perfectly while the outside was a mess. Mine That Bird got the better trip and thumped him, but Summer Bird’s performance was amazing. Even though the race was out of reach, Summer Bird kept running hard down the lane and passed enough of his foes to finish 6th.
After skipping the Preakness Stakes, Ice decided to run Summer Bird in the final leg of the Triple Crown, the Belmont Stakes. Trip horseplayers had caught on to Bird’s awesomeness. He was bet fairly well in the Belmont and ran to his odds. The running line will show that Summer Bird dominated Dunkirk and Mine That Bird by 2 ¾ lengths. Watching the Belmont again, most gamblers would have to agree that the margin of victory could have been much more. Summer Bird was near the back of the pack pretty much around the final turn and had to wait for an opening at the top of the stretch before unleashing his powerful late kick. It was an eye-opening performance.
Even in his loss to Rachel Alexandra in the Haskell Invitational, Summer Bird showed that he had turned into a horse to be reckoned with. Running on mud for the first time in his life, Summer Bird had a built in excuse for running a bad race, but he didn’t run a bad race. Jockey Kent Desormeaux, after surveying the field, put Summer Bird near the lead. It was a risky move as Summer Bird’s best running had been from off the pace. The move paid off as Summer Bird finished 2nd in the Haskell. There’s nothing wrong with getting dueled into submission by Rachel Alexandra and a replay of the race shows that Summer Bird actually accelerated in the lane to out run Munnings to the wire.
Summer Bird has run two more times since the Haskell Invitational. In both races, he was absolutely brilliant. In the Grade I Travers, the Mid-Summer Derby, Summer Bird beat Hold Me Back and Quality Road by 3 ½ lengths. He did so by stalking the pace instead of closing into it. In the Jockey Gold Cup, Ken Desormeaux put him near the lead again and once again, Summer Bird responded with a fantastic victory.
Summer Bird is ready to roll in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. He has beaten every horse he has faced in his last three races save for the unbeatable Rachel Alexandra. He has the ability to stalk, run near the lead, or from the back of the pack, and his breeding suggests that he will only get better the more he runs.
From race to race, Summer Bird has learned something new, excelled in one way or another. All of it is due to the steady handling from trainer Tim Ice. For having only one horse in his stable, Ice sure knows how train. I suppose if your lone horse is Summer Bird, you really don’t need to train anything else.
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