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.