COMMENTARY : Cigar Is Expected to Smoke the Field in the Woodward

He is one of the two best American racehorses of the 1990s.

He might become the first horse since Spectacular Bid to win the horse-of-the-year title by going through a season undefeated.

Yet as he seeks his 10th straight victory today, in the Woodward Stakes at Belmont Park, Cigar remains the best-kept secret in the sport. Most casual racing fans have never seen him on television and don’t realize how good he is.

As TV coverage of racing has declined, the only events that capture widespread public attention are the Triple Crown races. If a horse doesn’t make his mark in the spring of his 3-year-old season, he forfeits his chance to become a media star. Cigar didn’t even start his career until the spring of his 3-year-old season, 1993, and he didn’t find his proper milieu until late in 1994.

Trainer Bill Mott had fixed in his mind the notion that Cigar was supposed to be a grass runner. This seemed logical: The colt’s sire had been strictly a turf specialist. So even though Cigar scored his maiden victory on the dirt impressively enough, Mott transferred him to the grass and kept him there for a year.

By the fall of 1994, Cigar’s record was 1 for 2 on dirt and 1 for 11 on grass. Finally Mott saw the light and put Cigar back on the main track, where he underwent a startling transformation and proceeded to win nine straight races by a combined total of 42 lengths.

He has filled a void left by the premature retirement of Holy Bull, 1994’s horse of the year, who went lame when he faced Cigar in the Donn Handicap at Gulfstream Park. Racing fans can only speculate what would have happened if Cigar had faced a sound Holy Bull this season. Holy Bull possessed more raw speed. Cigar has superior versatility, with the ability to take the early lead or race from off the pace. And Cigar is probably better suited to the championship distance of 1 1/4 miles.

In my system of speed handicapping, Holy Bull’s three best figures were 122, 119 and 116. Cigar’s best are 121, 118 and 117. The two of them would have been a worthy match for each other -- but no other American racehorse of the 1990s would have been. The stars of recent Triple Crown series -- the ones who get all the media coverage -- aren’t remotely in the same class. (Thunder Gulch, who won the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes this year, has never earned a figure higher than 108.)

While the public might not yet recognize how good Cigar is, rival trainers do, and they have steered clear of a confrontation in the Woodward. Wayne Lukas has sent Thunder Gulch to Kentucky for easier pickings. Dick Small has kept Concern, the 1994 Breeders’ Cup winner, home in Maryland.

Cigar should have little trouble dominating his five rivals in the $500,000 stakes as he tunes up for his major objective, the $3 million Breeders’ Cup Classic at Belmont, Oct. 28.

The Woodward is part of a day that Belmont bills as Super Saturday, with six stakes that serve as preps for Breeders’ Cup races.

Two of the other races look as lopsided as the Woodward. Inside Information should dominate her filly and mare rivals in the Ruffian Stakes, and Golden Attraction will be heavily favored in the Matron Stakes for 2-year-old fillies.

The seven-furlong Vosburgh Stakes has drawn a field of 13 high-class sprinters, including Lite the Fuse, You and I and Lit de Justice, who delivered one of the most eye-catching performances of the year when he won at Del Mar last month.

The $400,000 Man O’War Stakes has attracted a top group of grass runners, including Tikkanen, the English invader who won last year’s Breeders’ Cup Turf.

The Futurity Stakes should feature a battle between a pair of highly regarded 2-year-olds, Honour and Glory and Louis Quatorze.

But even if the Woodward is not the most interesting race on the Super Saturday card, Cigar is surely the day’s main attraction. He is putting together a string of achievements that may properly be considered historic.

Mott, who is ordinarily the most understated of trainers, understands this. When he asked what he hoped to accomplish with Cigar, he was looking beyond even a Breeders’ Cup victory and an undefeated season.

“Some day,” he said, “when people mention Cigar, they (might) say it in the same breath with Seattle Slew or Spectacular Bid or Forego or Affirmed.”