Mind Your Biscuits Aims to Give Summers First Win

Chad Summers has 14 hours to kill in the near future. When the 32-year-old trainer departs Dubai to make his stateside return after the evening of March 25, he is going to have to find a topic or two to occupy his thoughts in the moments when he's not trying to rest.

The good news is he already has a couple subjects penciled in for reflection. He's going to use some of that time at 30,000-plus feet to try and absorb what has transpired in his world the last couple months. He is hoping that contemplation includes trying to digest the fact that his first win as a trainer came against some of the world's best with $2 million in prize money on the line.

A self-professed 'Jack of all trades, master of none,' Summers' newest designation may be as a group 1-winning conditioner who watched his charge overcome an unfortunate starting point to prevail on a global stage. Such will be the case should grade 1 winner Mind Your Biscuits run to his recent form out of post 14 in the one-turn Dubai Golden Shaheen Sponsored by Gulf News (G1) at Meydan Racecourse.

After holding down seemingly every position from hot walker to bloodstock agent within the Thoroughbred industry, Summers ventured out on a limb and took out his trainer's license earlier this year. Having already been involved in the development of Mind Your Biscuits since purchasing the colt privately on behalf of his clients when he failed to meet his reserve at the 2015 OBS April spring sale of 2-year-olds in training, Summers took over conditioning the New York-bred son of Posse from Robert Falcone Jr.—who saddled the chestnut colt to his four wins, including his victory in the Dec. 26 Malibu Stakes (G1).

BALAN: Mind Your Biscuits Scores Grade 1 in Malibu

Summers and his family were part of Mind Your Biscuits' ownership group, a partnership that includes J Stables and Head of Plains Partners. Hence, the New York-native already had a hands-on role in getting the colt to go from dominating state-breds to firmly holding court as one the nation's top sprinters.

"This is a horse that me and my family have had a part of from the beginning. But some owners and big connections and big agents want to give us a chance, and think we're going to train horses differently than the norm," Summers said of the decision to go out on his own. "And going in there knowing that we have the support of them makes it worthwhile to take that chance. 

"Training horses is not an easy profession. Nothing in this industry is easy. But if you do it for the right people and you have the right team ... I'm blessed enough to have a great team of support staff with me. So that gives us the confidence to do what we're going to do."

It doesn't hurt that Summers is hanging out his shingle while backed by a horse who has given him confidence even when others didn't exactly jump on the bandwagon.

Mind Your Biscuits teased of his ability as a 2-year-old, when he recorded a couple runner-up efforts in his first four starts. He was lagging a bit, however, until the light bulb started to come on after he broke his maiden by 7 1/2 lengths in his sophomore debut at Aqueduct Racetrack in April.

Three starts later, Mind Your Biscuits scored another emphatic victory when he dusted a field of New York-breds by 9 1/4 lengths at Belmont Park. Still, it wasn't until he captured the Amsterdam Stakes (G2) going 6 1/2 furlongs in July that respect started to trickle his way.

BLOODHORSE STAFF: Mind Your Biscuits Takes Amsterdam

"He's a horse that has a lot of quirks. We've gotten to learn his quirks and play with his quirks instead of trying to correct them," said Summers, who currently has 12 horses in his care but expects that number to grow to around 40 once he starts getting 2-year-olds in the barn. "And from a form perspective, the addition of the blinkers (has) turned him from a boy into a man. He's not intimidated by anything. He'll go inside, he'll go outside, he'll go through any hole. 

"He's done everything we've ever asked him to do. But I think in the beginning people were saying, 'Oh he's a New York-bred by Posse.' I think in the Breeders' Cup, they kind of looked at us as an outsider. They didn't give us much of a chance."

In his only try against grade 1 company prior to last November's TwinSpires Breeders' Cup Sprint (G1), Mind Your Biscuits ran fifth in the Ketel One King's Bishop Stakes (G1), but was beaten less than four lengths that day by eventual divisional champion Drefong.

Pleased as his connections were to see him hit the wire third behind Drefong in the Breeders' Cup, he got the added boost of being advanced to second weeks later when runner-up Masochistic was disqualified after testing positive for a prohibited substance. And after he ran down the wickedly talented Sharp Azteca to take the Malibu by half-length, Summers said a plan was then hatched to get the colt to the Golden Shaheen fresh as possible.

In his first start for his new trainer, Mind Your Biscuits just missed giving Summers a graded stakes win right out of the box when he fell a neck shy of Unified in the Feb. 25 Gulfstream Park Sprint Stakes (G3). Short of an actual victory, Summers feels that outing was what his colt needed to get his late-running kick on point for the bigger goal of trying to put his entire fledgling operation on the map Saturday evening.

"At this point really, most of what we've done is done. It's going to be up to the horse," Summers said. "We schooled the other day and I think it was good for both me and him to see the procedure of vanning from the barn area, coming up here. You walk through the tunnel and it's like you're getting ready for the Super Bowl. 

"It will be a 14-hour flight back home and at that point maybe we'll sit and reflect and look at everything. But right now we're very focused on the goal at hand. The Malibu kind of stamped him as a legitimate horse and now we're on the world stage and going to hopefully prove how good he is."