THOROUGBRED RACING : A New Twist: Exit Holy Bull, Enter Cigar

The career-ending injury suffered by Holy Bull in the Donn Handicap Saturday probably will endure as the biggest racing story of 1995, so it is understandable that what happened at Gulfstream after the Horse of the Year was pulled up went unnoticed until well after the star was vanned back to the barn, X-rayed, treated and retired. When a horse of Holy Bull’s caliber is seriously injured in a race, what happens afterward becomes somewhat superfluous.

While no one has suggested that Cigar would have beaten Holy Bull Saturday, the race he ran indicates he certainly would not have been embarrassed. The favorite was lapped on Cigar’s flank and running easily while under restraint when the ligament went. Three strides before he was injured, Holy Bull looked strong. But so did Cigar, who certainly would have been the favorite were Holy Bull not entered in the Donn and was the bottom horse in most bettors’ cold exactas.

Left suddenly alone on the lead, Cigar won the Donn by 5 1/2 lengths, his second Grade I victory on dirt and his fourth straight since trainer Bill Mott decided he had seen one too many disinterested efforts on grass from Cigar.

Interesting animal, Cigar. In fewer than four months the son of Palace Music and Solar Slew has gone from forgettable, even disappointing animal trapped at the non-winners of two allowance level, to multiple Grade I winner, an almost impossible advance in stature.

His early efforts while stationed at owner Allen Paulson’s California division were ambitious, but the highlight of his 3-year-old season was a runner-up effort in the Volante Handicap at Santa Anita. Cigar was nothing if not consistent on grass. Sent to Mott as a 4-year-old, he finished no better than third in four grass races. By the time Cigar compiled a 1-for-11 record on turf, Mott was considering his options.

Option 1: He entered Cigar in a mile allowance race on dirt in late November at Aqueduct, the track at which he likely would be racing now if he failed to turn things around quickly, which would have been Option 2. Another clunker and Paulson may have been more than happy to sell and cut his losses, Option 3. But Cigar ran the race of his life. He was a dramatically different horse on dirt, showing more speed and an aggressive style seen in none of his 11 races on grass. He won by eight lengths. His first race on dirt was roughly 15 lengths better than his last mile race on grass.

It took only a month and one more race before Cigar was a Grade I winner. If his first race on dirt produced a quantum leap forward in form, his effort in the NYRA Mile was marked by another significant improvement, a race that was nothing short of startling. He made no one forget Holy Bull’s Met Mile, but Cigar’s 7-length defeat of Devil His Due, who was seldom beaten as convincingly, was easily the second-best mile race of 1994.

With new life at age 5, Cigar’s season began last month at Gulfstream, where he overcame early trouble and won a 1 1/16-mile allowance race by two lengths and, though he was a convincing winner, the race virtually went unnoticed. A half-hour earlier, Holy Bull had won the Olympic Handicap in his long-awaited 4-year-old debut.

Mott, like everyone else at Gulfstream Saturday, was focused on Holy Bull when the gray champion was pulled up. “I knew where my horse was, so I turned my attention to Holy Bull,” he said. “He was lame, but I could see he had all four feet on the ground.” When his attention returned to his own horse, Mott saw Cigar pulling away in the final furlong and in the process staking a claim to the suddenly vacant handicap-division leadership. “Sure was a damn good race,” Mott said. “You can’t take anything away from his effort.”

If a star was born at Gulfstream Saturday, none was ever born so quietly and there will be no rush to coronation. The jury on Cigar, according to Mott, remains out, but not for much longer.

Mott will send the suddenly formidable Cigar after a third Grade-I title in the March 5 Gulfstream Park Handicap, a race that will be pivotal to the rest of his season. Success will result in Mott taking a long-range view. “We’ll probably look at the Jockey Club Gold Cup and the Breeders’ Cup,” he said. The handicap division offers much opportunity, but the greatest rewards await in autumn.

Mott said Cigar must prove himself at 9 furlongs on dirt before making a decision on the direction he will take. Mott has a way of keeping things in perspective, especially in the wake of a victory that always will be tainted by unfortunate circumstance.

“It wasn’t the same as if he’d beaten Holy Bull,” Mott said. “If he had, it would have probably felt like winning the Kentucky Derby.”