Breeders' Cup Mile: He Be Fire N Ice gets his shot

ARCADIA, Calif. – The Breeders’ Cup has altered the way in which horses not nominated as foals to the event can be permitted to participate. A payment that represents a percentage of the purse of the race to which a horse was being supplemented has been changed to a flat $100,000 fee (or $200,000 if the horse’s sire was not BC-nominated at the time of conception) that makes a horse eligible for any Breeders’ Cup race for the rest of his career.

The $100,000 fee is far less than the highest supplemental payments of the past, which have been as high as $800,000, but it still is a significant investment – one that Ron and Barbara Perry of Cicero Farms have made with the California-bred 5-year-old He Be Fire N Ice, who starts Saturday in the $2 million BC Mile.

“I told them it’s not a good decision from a business standpoint, and they understand that,” trainer John Sadler said.

The fourth-place finisher in the 2012 Mile earned a $120,000 cut of the purse, enough to cover the late-eligibility payment. And with the Breeders’ Cup coming back to Southern California in 2014, He Be Fire N Ice theoretically could have another crack at a race next year.

Moreover, the horse has earned $277,380 this year, a windfall that his owners and Sadler could not have seen coming at the start of the season. In February, He Be Fire N Ice finished a distant seventh in a Santa Anita dirt sprint, his first start after a layoff of 1 1/2 years precipitated by a tendon injury.

Since that modest comeback race – which was intended, Sadler said, merely to shake off rust – He Be Fire N Ice has improved with every start, winning three allowance races, finishing a close second to his stablemate, the BC Turf contender Vagabond Shoes, in the Del Mar Mile in August, and closing to be second behind fellow BC Mile starter No Jet Lag in the City of Hope Mile here Oct. 5.

“Once we got him on turf, he’s been a whiz,” Sadler said.

[BREEDERS’ CUP 2013: Fields with DRF odds and comments]

Sadler has three chances this year to win his first Breeders’ Cup race, but he does have a history of success with late-nominated horses to the BC Mile: Whatsthescript finished third in the 2008 Mile, earning a $210,000 check and making back the steep supplementary payment his connections coughed up.