What have you done for me lately?

Maybe that was the rationale behind the Jayaramans’ perplexing decision to remove 25 horses from the barn of their private trainer, Tim Ice, including last year’s champion 3-year-old Summer Bird.

Or was it the lack of communication that Kalarikkal Jayaraman cited for the split?

I wonder what is more important: The communication a trainer has with his horses or the exchanges he has with his owners?

As an owner and a breeder until just recently, and the daughter of a trainer, I would want my trainer “talking” to my horses, and my needs would be secondary to that of my horses. Also, I wouldn’t be so quick to forget the brilliant work done by my trainer, even if a duplication of that success was slow to come on the heels of a truly extraordinary year.

The sluggish start to 2010 is what Ice believes was a contributing factor. He was 2 for 15 with the Jayaramans’ horses at the current Oaklawn Park meet, and then an injury to one of their horses the weekend of Feb. 6 might have been the final straw.

Or perhaps something entirely different, that only the parties involved is privy to, led to this turn of events.

Whatever the case, I still find it odd.

Ice, who was in his first year of training in 2009, took Summer Bird – a raw bundle of talent – and developed him into a Classic winner. There was the romp in the Belmont Stakes, followed by another thrashing of his peers in the Travers, and then a drubbing of his elders in the Jockey Club Gold Cup. In between the Belmont and Travers, the son of Birdstone finished second behind future Horse of the Year Rachel Alexandra in the Haskell. Following the Jockey Club Gold Cup, he ran a respectable fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Classic.

It’s no easy task to keep a horse in good health and in top form for a nine-month tour of duty, but that’s what Ice did, and he did it with finesse. There were no signs of fatigue in Summer Bird; the colt actually blossomed into an incredibly robust-looking horse as the season marched on. Under tack, he never looked better than during the week leading up to the Breeders’ Cup.

The first public bump in the road in the Summer Bird camp came when the colt suffered a condylar fracture while training in Japan for the Japan Cup Dirt in late November. It was not a career-threatening injury. And it would seem illogical to blame Ice for the injury, which Summer Bird is expected to recover from and return to the races later this year for his new trainer, Tim Ritchey of Alfeet Alex fame.

The Jayaramans’ proclivity for changing trainers at the drop of a hat is well-documented. Last year, Kalarikkal Jayaraman was on record saying he had employed a whopping 89 trainers since he and his wife Vilasini entered the business in the early 1980s. Kalarikkal, a cardiac surgeon, has even trained his horses on occasion.

Something tells me that it will be difficult to top or even match the good times the Jayaramans had with trainer No. 89.

Before this year it’s unlikely you would have evoked the name of Bruce Levine as the trainer of a hotshot 3-year-old.

The native New Yorker is better known for his craftiness at the claim box rather than for preparing horses on the Derby trail. But thanks to Buddy’s Saint, who is being pointed to the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth at Gulfstream Park on Feb. 20, Levine has a promising Derby contender on his hands.

The colt enters the 1 1/8-mile Fountain of Youth with a maiden win in a sprint (although was disqualified for interference), a blowout victory in the Grade 2 Nashua at a flat mile, and another comfortable score in the Grade 2 Remsen around two turns.

Levine is not unfamiliar with training stakes horses; he conditioned the wickedly fast Bustin Stones who provided him with his first Grade 1 win in the 2008 Carter Handicap at Aqueduct. But Buddy’s Saint is the first Derby prospect that Levine has had in his barn in 31 years of training, and all that comes with that isn’t lost on the 54-year-old.

“It’s a great thrill to have one of the top 3-year-olds in the country,” Levine said. “It’s what I dream about. I think it’s what any trainer dreams about. I’ve got a shot [at the Kentucky Derby]. I’m not saying I’m going to win the Derby, but I have to think I’ve got a shot.”

Eli Lomita, Buddy’s Saint’s owner, a manufacturer of women’s clothing, called Levine several years ago, wanting to claim some horses. In 2005, while Levine was searching for a claimer for Lomita, he had a trip scheduled to the Keeneland September yearling sales on the behalf of other clients. On a whim, Levine called Lomita and suggested he buy a young horse.

Levine was pleasantly surprised when Lomita agreed but the trainer was really blown away when Lomita told him he put several hundred thousand dollars on credit with Keeneland in anticipation of making a purchase.

“Here’s a guy I hadn’t even been able to find a $20,000 claimer for,” Levine said, “and now I’m looking at buying a horse in the First Book at Keeneland, rather than Book 19.”

The horse that was purchased for $435,000 was Buddy’s Humor, a graded stakes winner of $380,648 who is still in training. Three years later at the same sale, Buddy’s Saint was acquired for $100,000. The son of 2005 Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Saint Liam has won double that since breaking his maiden in September.

Substantial offers for Buddy’s Saint were made after the Nashua romp and then picked up in intensity after the nine-furlong Remsen. But Lomita, who is in his 70s, wasn’t biting.

“[Lomita] really had a great line,” Levine said. “He said, ‘You know what, I have had $20 million worth of fun just owning him, so I don’t want to sell.’”

Levine is also enjoying himself but with that fun also comes a bit of anxiousness. He is a horse trainer, after all, and one that has an electrifying Derby prospect in his care.

“Yes, it does make me a bit nervous having him,” Levine said. “A lot of that is because I have never had a 3-year-old with a real shot, and it’s not like I have six of them in the barn, so some days I am more nervous than others. And I’ll tell you why, it’s because he is a really, really good horse.”