While that would all depend on the race flow to the quarter pole/eighth pole, Summer Bird will wear down opponents the longer the race goes. And as he's maturing, he's showing the ability to be placed anywhere. He certainly is getting tactical to the point where he could sit a garden trip early as Rachel Alexandra gets engaged up front. His turn of foot is much better than anyone wanted to believe, and while he may not have the brilliance and cruising speed Rachel Alexandra has, he certainly has a highly sustainable gear.

What has to be brought into the conversation is that Summer Bird is continuing to improve. Next year should be tremendously entertaining should the two of them have opportunities together. And I mean opportunities plural too, because a rivalry between them would be riotous.

Dr. J wants to run. He and the wife were thinking of getting out of the business... He said this week that he's waited a long time to have a horse like this and that they're having too much fun. He bred the dam. He bred Summer Bird. He wants more! You should have seen him yesterday.

I talked to Ice about it this morning, and he said the only thing that keeps him off the track next year is a serious injury.

Which brings us back to the original post, if he wins the BC Classic next month, which is certainly not a certainty, he deserves to have a few votes cast his way for HOY. He's get mine if I had one.

Or 30 million..Look you know I would love to see him race I just figure if he wins the Classic there is zero shot..I can't even blame the owners if they dont race 30 mil is a lot of G1 wins.. Not sure the environment is 30mil friendly but you have no clue what could emerge with a BC Classic win.

There's little doubt about that. Summer Bird has developed into a really nice horse. I still think SB would need help up front at this point (as in Rachel getting pushed on the lead) for him to beat her.
Having them face each other on synthetic would be meaningless, IMO. It would be like having them race against each other in a turf race.. completely different surface.. and we all have to get past trying to think dirt and AW are anything similar.

Yeah maybe, but we have to live with the fact poly is part of today's racing fabric now. As long as they both run on it it is a fair match up due to the fact no one has an advantage since both are foreign to the surface. Really there was no excuse for her not running yesterday, I know JJ had the Preemptive statement she was done for the year, but the JCGC carries more prestige than the Woodward. Up until now her most prestigious win would be that race. SB's is the JCGC. Which one means more? If we get past the ga ga factor of RA, I think we would all agree SB's set of 3 gr.1's Belmont-Travers-JCGC is more impressive than RA's set of 3 the Preak-Haskell-Woodward or atleast it is on paper.

Edit-Well not really, I keep forgetting RA has a poly win to her credit.

They are in two completely different leagues. Who knows what happens next year but currently you have a very nice G1 colt vs. a REAL super horse (remember what Nerud told you or did you forget because we like Ice?). I am surprised that you think he would have any shot against her ever. Plus who is coming next year to sacifice a horse when they are running for 3rd money, Dry Martini or Awesome Gem?

Remember Ice is 35 years old..Nothing against him at all..But your bottom comments about Summer Bird are more relevant to Ice then Summer Bird.

:tro: :tro:

altho i agree that summer bird is turning out to be a good horse, there is nothing i've seen from rachel that would indicate she is tailing off, or that she won't continue to have a good year next year. mdo certainly was no slouch at four, and i douby anyone would argue that rachel has shown precocity. if anything she has shown herself to be able to run one top notch race after another, with no signs of losing a step. she ran a hell of a campaign this year-beginning to end a good one. the same cannot be said about summer bird.
at any rate, i look forward to future meetings between the two.

I think in Jackson's mind his predetermined refusal to run RA in the BC regardless of circumstance justifies(to himself) Curlin's poor performance last year. He didn't want to run Curlin on the poly and does not want to tarnish the perception of RA, like he feels Curlins' was tarnished.

Yes agreed, but isn't the unknown part of racing what makes it such a great sport? If it is it's dumb reason why he isn't running her especially since she has won on poly before.

Agreed! I didn't say it was a good reason or logical, just my opinion of Jackson's reason.

While I'm always torn on how I feel about Jackson, and am mostly playing devil's advocate on this particular issue -- why on Earth should he care about the "unknown" and it being "exciting?"

It's his horse, he doesn't think it's in her best interests to run on the stuff, just like he didn't with Curlin last year, and that turned out poorly.

Let's lobby Interpretation's folks to cut him back to a 5-furlong Poly allowance race this fall, it's unknown and would be exciting, right? The sport would be better for it.

No way he will get 30 million and why wouldnt he just wait till next year anyway? A big year next year and he will get just as much and may be dealing from strength in a better economic climate.

Funny I think that Curlins perception after the race was brought into a more realistic light. He was a pretty good horse, though hardly the type that Jackson and the infidels thought he was.

As a Broodmare prospect and not a Stallian prospect, I think he would do it for the sporting reason only, look at SB's owners, they are having a hell of a time and they have seemingly have concluded that running is better than not running taking a greater risk than a multi millionaire that JJ is.

No one said he should care though a "sportsman" may have.

The point of horseracing especially for the ultra-rich is to see who's horse is best and to test your horses limits. Since handicap racing has been all but eliminated in this country, it would be nice to see owners/trainers try to test thier horses by doing different things. Surely Jackson has done that with RA but lets face it, he needs to race her at 1 1/4 next year or there will always be that knock against her. Speculating that she could get the distance and doing it are two different things. I think Freddy is nuts to think that she is in another league from Summer Bird, especially at 1 1/4 which is clearly a distance that he excells at. People get too hung up on the results of one race especially in a race where SB was clearly at a disadvantage (track plays to RA's favor not to mention he was cutting back off a 1 1/2 race to 1 1/8th which is tricky).

Anyone who says the sport wouldnt be better off with RA running in the BC has a strange outlook on better off.

Why, because he was only a pretty good turf horse?

Ok cant argue it is a horrible time to have a good horse but whatever the figure it is way more then they will make racing.

I watched tons of race replays from the 90's last night (do I know how to have a good Saturday night or what? :o ) and it's so completely depressing how far we've fallen from this concept...

It's also a shame that this has completely destroyed the significance of races like the Pimlico Special etc.