Summer Bird getting going

Summer Bird, the champion 3-year-old of 2009, is expected to begin breezing in May at Delaware Park, according to his trainer, Tim Ritchey.

The horse was based over the winter at Oaklawn, where he resumed training in March. Summer Bird, who had been sidelined with a non-displaced condylar fracture to his right foreleg, is to ship to Delaware on either Monday or Tuesday. The date of his first breeze is to be determined after some training time at his new base, said Ritchey.

"He'll take a week or so to get galloping over the Delaware track, to kind of get used to that surface," Ritchey said. "It's probably going to be the first, second week in May before he has a breeze.

"And it's probably going to be, I would think, end of June beginning of July when he's ready to start."

Ritchey had sent a load of horses to Delaware on Wednesday, but the van was just starting out when a vehicle crossing the center lane hit it. Ritchey said all of the horses escaped injury and were brought back to Oaklawn. Summer Bird was not on that van.

Summer Bird was transferred to Ritchey in February. Tim Ice trained the horse last year, when he won the Belmont Stakes, Travers and Jockey Club Gold Cup.