Belmont Park: Promising 2-year-old Fire On Ice out for the year

ELMONT, N.Y. - Fire On Ice, visually the most impressive maiden-winning 2-year-old colt of the Saratoga meet, suffered a condylar fracture of his left hind leg and will miss the remainder of his 2-year-old season and most likely a shot at the spring classics, trainer John Kimmel said Thursday.

Kimmel noticed something wrong with Fire On Ice Thursday morning, one day after he worked five furlongs in 59.94 seconds over Belmont’s main track.

Fire On Ice, who won a six-furlong maiden race by 10 3/4 lengths at Saratoga on Aug. 27, had been pointing to the Grade 1 Champagne at Belmont Park on Oct. 8.

Kimmel said the Fire On Ice was scheduled to ship to Ocala Equine Hospital in Florida on Friday and would be operated on by Dr. John Madison on Monday. Kimmel said the fracture is non-displaced and would require one screw.

Kimmel said the entire recuperative period would be six months, meaning Fire On Ice wouldn’t be able to begin training until March, which would make it unlikely that he could be pointed to a Triple Crown campaign. Kimmel was more distraught about missing the remainder of the colt’s 2-year-old season.

“It’s the nature of the game,” Kimmel said. “We’re obviously distraught. He’s as good a horse as I’ve ever been around. I was looking forward to a shot at a 2-year-old championship campaign. To not realize that is a tough pill to swallow.”

Kimmel had owned Fire On Ice with Eli Gindi but recently sold controlling interest of the Unbridled’s Song colt to Frank Stronach. Kimmel said Stronach took the news “better than I did.”