Summer Bird retired from racing

By: SPORTS NETWORK

 

Stanton, DE (Sports Network) - Champion colt Summer Bird has been retired from racing and will enter stud service. Trainer Tim Ritchey made the announcement Thursday at Delaware Park.

Ritchey said that the four-year-old has been retired because of an injury he suffered last year before a scheduled race in Japan. Summer Bird had a hairline fracture of his right front cannon bone which required surgery.

Owned and bred by K.K. and Vilasini Jayaraman, Summer Bird will begin stud service for the 2011 breeding season.

Summer Bird, winner of last year's Belmont Stakes, had been recuperating from surgery first at Oaklawn Park and most recently at Delaware Park. Early this year the colt was transferred from trainer Tim Ice to Ritchey.

Along with the Belmont in 2009 Summer Bird captured the Travers Stakes and Jockey Club Gold Cup. The colt finished sixth in the Kentucky Derby and fourth behind Zenyatta in the Breeders' Cup Classic.

His accomplishments led to him being voted the Eclipse Award as top three- year-old male of 2009. Last year he won four of nine starts for $2,323,040.