Summer Bird Retired
 

Stud Fee? Tree Fiddy

What a great move taking the horse from Ice! :rolleyes:

That's too bad.

What an odd statement

I don't think I can say, "he's done enough".

I was anticipating a QR and SB re-match

HUH?

This proves he really wasn't 3yo champ last year.

lol
 

lol he was, the longer the race the better he is, but if he fracture something is gonna be very hard for him to run.... :tro:

:tro:






Leader in the Clubhouse for 'Post of the Year'..

There is plenty of blame to go around in this story, but Tim Ritchey doesn't deserve an ounce of criticism. The horse hadn't been doing well at all coming back from the surgery, and just didn't heel well enough to run back. So taking the horse from Tim Ice has no bearing on the ending of the Summer Bird saga.

The Jayaramans were lucky to come up with Summer Bird in the first place, as his breeding was a complete accident, and Ice did a tremendous job with him crafting a 3yo Championship. It was the decision of the meddling and difficult couple to run in the Breeders' Cup and in Japan, both against Ice's wishes, and they are 100% responsible for the outcome. And at the same time, Ice was also 100% responsible for having been fired by them.

The net result is that the Jayaramans, who have been in racing a long time got a big horse, and Tim Ice, who was just starting out, got a jump-start on a career. Summer Bird was a nice horse who was very pleasant to be around, and carved out a darned notable spot for himself in racing lore with the Belmont-Travers-Gold Cup triple.

He is far from a throw back from yester year.

Well said Steve.

I said it at the time, I hated the trip to the Japan, it's too bad I would have loved to have seen him crush Quality Road road again this year.

A healthy Summer Bird would have been lucky to finish 3rd in the Met Mile yesterday. Now, going 10f against Quality Road is a different story. To that I would say just because a horse cannot go 10f as well as 8f does not make them "not great."

Second that.

At a mile, agreed.

So it's OK to make all kinds of excuses for Summer Bird losing to Rachel but none are allowed for QR losing to SB?

NT

What is so odd about my statement? Without inside information, it was hard to see why Ice deserved to lose this horse after what he had done with him. Then for the horse to be retired before he even made a start for Richey just seemed to me to make it a pretty silly move by the owners.