On Saturday, Belmont Stakes and Travers winner Summer Bird will take on older horses for the first time in the Grade 1 $750,000 Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont Park.
Trainer Tim Ice said today on a national teleconference that the 3-year-old Birdstone colt is ready for his next, and biggest, assignment.
"The way he came out of the Travers and the way he's coming into the race, I think he's ready for the step up," Ice said. "He's almost 4 now, so I think he'll handle it. He seems to have moved forward off the Travers. He's been doing super coming into the race and I look forward to the test."
Ice chose the 1 1/4-mile Gold Cup over the 1 1/8-mile Goodwood (Grade 1, $350,000) at Santa Anita on Oct. 10 for Summer Bird. The Goodwood is run at the same track where the Breeders' Cup Classic will be held in November, but regular rider Kent Desormeaux wouldn't have been available that day.
"With the Gold Cup being at Belmont and he's proven over the track already, I think the Gold Cup would be a very good stepping-stone for him to clinch 3-year-old male Eclipse Award," Ice said. "I think overall the Gold Cup set up perfectly; he didn't have to travel very far, just a shortcut down the road from Saratoga to Belmont.
"And it made a big decision in keeping Kent Desormeaux on him. Kent had an obligation to [trainer] Bill Mott on the 10th, so it played a big role as far as having Kent stay on."
Among the horses Summer Bird will face in the Gold Cup are Grade 1 winners Quality Road, who he beat in the Travers, and 4-year-old Macho Again, who is co-owned by Roger and Joyce Locks of Saratoga Springs and Ballston Spa native Jim Cutbush through the West Point Thoroughbreds syndicate.
"I don't think Summer Bird is any less of a horse than Quality Road," Ice said. "I feel like I have the best 3-year-old right now, and that's how I'm coming into the race. Quality Road, he has to step up to beat me. I feel like Quality Road has a lot to prove against Summer Bird and not the other way around."
Macho Again ran second to superfilly Rachel Alexandra in the Grade 1 Woodward at Saratoga Race Course on Sept. 5; Summer Bird was a more distant second to Rachel in the Grade 1 Haskell Invitational in August.
"Obviously Macho Again is a very nice horse," Ice said. "He's coming back on four weeks and I have five weeks. He ran a very hard race, and I think that his setup to get him to run against her was definitely a lot better than mine. She was pushed several times before he had his run at her, so she was definitely softened up quite a bit for him to get closer to her than I was. He's definitely one of the horses to beat and I think that he's a very nice horse. We'll find out Saturday."
Summer Bird didn't make his race debut until March, and the Gold Cup will be just his eighth career start, factors that Ice feels could work to his benefit.
"He's very lightly raced, and he seems to be improving off of each race," Ice said. "He's a very sound horse, so I think coming up into this fall that's helped his progress go forward. It definitely helps having a fresh horse coming into the fall.
"I had a lot of confidence coming into the Travers with the way he was training. He showed me every day that he was coming up to a big race. He's done well since then. It's an honor to have one of the top 3-year-olds right now and basically we need to continue that success."
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Icon Project, impressive runaway winner of the Grade 1 Personal Ensign at Saratoga this summer, has options for her next start.
While Saturday's Grade 1 $600,000 Beldame on the dirt at Belmont Park is a possibility, so is the Grade 1 $500,000 Spinster over the Polytrack at Keeneland on Oct. 11.
Going in the Spinster would give Icon Project a race over an artificial surface prior to the Breeders' Cup, which is being run on the synthetic Pro-Ride track at Santa Anita for the second straight fall.
"We're leaning toward the Beldame, but we haven't ruled out the race at Keeneland," Rosen said. "We've been mulling that over for a week or so. We're going to decide that finally this week."
Icon Project is back in Florida with trainer Marty Wolfson. The filly has shipped to New York twice for the New York Handicap at Belmont and the Personal Ensign, and Delaware for the Delaware Handicap, returning to Florida each time. Rosen said she'll head back to Florida after her next start and then ship to California for the Breeders' Cup.
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