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TrueNicks is proud to announce our first new stallion addition for the 2011 breeding season – Champion 3-Year-Old Summer Bird (TrueNicks) who retires to Pauls Mill in Versailles, Kentucky.

Summer Bird’s historic 3-year-old campaign included Grade I victories in the Belmont (Video), Travers (Video), and Jockey Club Gold Cup (Video). It had been 20 years since the last horse – Easy Goer – won these three events in the same season. In the Travers and Jockey Club Gold Cup, Summer Bird handed consecutive defeats to the talented Quality Road. Summer Bird finished second in the Haskell Invitational (gr. I) to eventual Horse of the Year Rachel Alexandra.

Making what would be his final start, and only start on a synthetic surface, Summer Bird was an impressive fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Classic (gr. I), just three lengths behind Zenyatta.

Summer Bird is a son of Birdstone (TrueNicks,SRO), winner of the Champagne Stakes (gr. I) at two, and the Belmont and Travers at three. Ben P. Walden, Jr., owner of Pauls Mill, points out Summer Bird's unique classic pedigree: "You’d have to look long and hard to find a classic winner whose first three sires are classic winners and whose first three dams are by classic winners," Walden said in a release. Indeed, Birdstone, Grindstone, Unbridled, Summer Squall, Alysheba, and Nijinsky are all classic winners (see Summer Bird's pedigree below with these Classic winners highlighted).

In addition to these classic credentials, Summer Bird is from the family of top young stallion Tapit (TrueNicks,SRO). The Nijinsky mare Ruby Slippers is the second dam of Tapit and third dam of Summer Bird.

Summer Bird, who is currently being syndicated, will stand alongside Artie Schiller (TrueNicks,SRO), Bellamy Road (TrueNicks,SRO), and U S Ranger (TrueNicks,SRO) at Pauls Mill. A stud fee will be announced at a later date.

Summer Bird's pedigree:

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