Cold As Ice

Tweet It seems like yesterday when Tim Ice and the Jayaramans were standing in the basement of Belmont Park at their winning press conference where Dr. KKJ was lavishing praise on his trainer. But in the theme of "what have you done for me lately" the Jayaramans relieved Ice of his training duties of 25 horses, rendering his barn practically empty (six horses remain). Five of these horses were nominated to the 2010 Triple Crown. While I'm sure you've already heard the news, I took a burn to this, mainly due to my affinity for Summer Bird and his terrific 3yo season wherein he won the Belmont Stakes, the Travers Stakes and the Jockey Club Gold Cup. KKJ cited "communication issues" with Ice. From where I come from it takes two sides to communicate and I find it hard to believe that he wouldn't cut a guy who delivered him a Triple Crown race some slack. Ice did a fabulous job training the Bird during his Eclipse winning season (don't forget he was 6th in the Kentucky Derby and 4th in the BC Classic to boot), winning over $2.3M in the process for the Jayaramans. His move to put blinkers on Summer Bird before the Belmont was a terrific job of training. Not too shabby. But I guess his current Oaklawn meeting numbers (2 for 15) for the doctors just aren't cutting it so....thanks for coming.

Ice said during the Belmont press conference, "If my career goes nowhere from here, I've got a Belmont win. They can't take it away from me." Let's hope he can pick up the pieces and some new, more appreciative owners in the process. He's still has this fan in his corner.