FIRE ON ICE (Unbridled’s Song) may not be the easiest horse to train, but trainer John Kimmel
will happily cope with the colt’s quirks if he continues to offer the brilliance
he displayed in his debut win on Travers Day at Saratoga Race Course.
“We had the horse for a couple months, and we were trying to come up with a
name,” said Kimmel, who owns the gray colt in partnership with Eli Gindi. “We thought the name might be taken, but we looked it up and it wasn’t
taken. It certainly is appropriate for his demeanor. He has a lot of energy, and
you certainly have to keep a close eye on him when you’re walking him or he’ll
take a nice, big chunk out of you.”
In Saturday’s
2ND
race, Fire on Ice dueled with Casual Trick (Bernardini) through fractions of 22
1/5 and :45, dispatched that rival straightening for home, and continued to
run away from his opponents after jockey David Cohen put away the whip inside
the final furlong.
Fire on Ice, whose official margin of victory was 10 3/4 lengths, completed the
six furlongs in 1:09 3/5 and joined the
New York
Watch, which shines the spotlight on promising maiden winners. He received a 99 BRIS Speed rating.
“On the other side of the coin, that same fire has made him extremely impressive
not only in his morning trials, but he’s also now showed it in the afternoon,” Kimmel
said. “He’s never lost a breeze and has breezed with horses who have won.
It didn’t surprise me that he won, because I felt that if he ran in the
afternoon like he did in the morning that he’d be a pretty serious horse.”
The ease of Fire on Ice’s maiden victory pleased Kimmel.
“We’ll go through years and years and years without coming up with a horse who
breaks his maiden like that,” Kimmel said. “He’s healthy, he ate up. He didn’t
even stop eating — he went right into his feed tub. He’s kind of impressive.
Most horses, if they put forward an effort like that, they might not eat their
full complement.
“What I like about him is that he won with a lot left in the tank,” Kimmel
continued. “It’s almost a good thing if they don’t go too fast first time out.
Sometimes, it really takes a lot to repeat that performance. If he had to run
harder, I’m pretty confident he would have broken 1:09.”
Kimmel has ambitious goals for Fire on Ice.
“I would say there is no other place to run in than the Champagne (G1) (at Belmont Park
on October 8),” Kimmel said. “Obviously, the real bright races are
the Champagne and the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (G1) (at Churchill Downs on November
5).”
Uncle Mo (Indian Charlie), who also broke his maiden in a six-furlong race on Travers Day, won
the Champagne and the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile en route to being named last year’s
champion two-year-old male.
Fire on Ice, who sold for $160,000 at Fasig-Tipton’s July Selected Yearlings
sale and was a $170,000 buyback at Keeneland’s two-year-olds in training sale,
is the third foal and first winner out of the Storm Cat mare Lost in the Storm, an unraced
half-sister to 2001 champion sprinter Squirtle Squirt.