Summer Bird - 2009 Jockey Club Gold Cup

Belmont Stakes and Shadwell Travers winner Summer Bird wrote his way into the history books Saturday afternoon at Belmont Park, outdueling a game Quality Road through the stretch to win the 91st running of the Grade 1, $750,000 Jockey Club Gold Cup. With the victory, Summer Bird became the first 3-year-old since 1989 to have won all three races in a single year.

The handsome chestnut colt is just the 10th sophomore and first since Easy Goer to string together victories in the Belmont, Travers and Jockey Club Gold Cup. The other 3-year-olds who have won the trio of prestigious races in New York are Man oWar (1920), Twenty Grand (1931), One Count (1951), Gallant Man (1957), Sword Dancer (1959), Damascus (1967), Arts and Letters (1969) and Temperence Hill (1980). All but One Count and Temperence Hill are Hall of Famers.

I think it puts him in an elite group, said 34-year-old Tim Ice, who trains the son of 2004 Belmont Stakes and Travers winner Birdstone for Drs. Kalarikkal and Vilasini Jayaraman. I think he should be champion 3-year-old colt.

Category:

Sports

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• summer
• bird
• jockey
• club
• gold
• cup
• belmont
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• 2009
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• tim
• ice
• kent
• desormeaux
• quality
• road
• john
• velazquez

[sugarpuppy137]

Summer Bird just keeps impressing me more and more, I had originally thought that Quality Road was the top three year old male. How wrong I was. Good for S.B, I'm excited to see him get the credit he deserves.

[jediknightjohnny123]

nope quality road is the best 3 yr old. i stand by my horse... quality road is the best

[catfreak8008]

@GBeret83 I think it's best to judge a horse on how he runs on the day the race is run...not how he supposedly runs if the conditions were 'perfect'...in reality you may not get those perfect conditions. I think a horse proves himself by winning over any surface, not just a hard fast one.

[Willyrooster]

and it was a muddy track? closers do not normally fair well on wet tracks.... rremember zenyatta in the Louisville Distaff ? exactly, it was a wet track

[Willyrooster]

macho again outran einstien?

[ZenyattaLuver]

Yeah , But Macho Again Is Not A Great Closer , If That Was A Horse Like Gio Ponti Or Zenyatta Or Even A 100% Quality Road , They Would Of Went Straight By Her

[ZenyattaLuver]

LOL

[ZenyattaLuver]

I 100% Agree , This Horse Was Still Finding His Feet , IMO He Would Of Finished 3rd In The BCC