Mitole wraps up First-Crop sire championship honors with stakes winner on New Year’s Eve

Ice Cold surges past Denim and Pearls to win the Year’s End S. at Oaklawn Park – Coady photography

Ice Cold earned the second stakes win of her 2023 campaign on Dec. 31 at Oaklawn Park with a flying finish in the $200,000 Year’s End S.

The 2-year-old daughter of Mitole put an exclamation point on a magnificent year for her sire, who finished the 2023 season as the Champion First-Crop sire by progeny earnings, with $2,616,297 and winners, with 34. Along with Ice Cold, Mitole accounted for Pocahantas S. (G3) winner and Grade 1-placed V V’s Dream, dual stakes-placed Halina’s Forte, and four additional stakes performers. Mitole’s 2024 fee is $15,000 S&N.

Ice Cold, who won the Oct. 4 Miss Indiana S. by 10 lengths, was sixth of seven through the first half of the one-mile Year’s End. Despite being in the three-path around the final bend, she made up ground and was with three lengths of the lead coming into the stretch. She ran by odds-on favorite Denim and Pearls with a sixteenth of a mile to go to with by three-quarters of a length in 1:38.97 on a fast track.

“She just grinds it out,” said trainer Ken McPeek. “She’s really figured it out going two turns. Just a really hard-knocking filly. Tom McGreevy and Dan [McGreevy], the main owner and his brother, are fun guys to work for, too.”

Ice Cold has a record of 2-1-0 in five starts and has earned $190,219. She was bred by Deann & Greg Baer. Out of the Street Sense mare Ice Women, Ice Cold is a half-sister to three-time stakes winner Corningstone. Ice Women produced a yearling colt by Omaha Beach and foaled a colt by Bolt d’Oro last Apr. 23. She was bred to Jackie’s Warrior for 2024.