You Had to Get Up Pretty Early to Watch Cigar--and a Lot Did

At 6:30 a.m. Wednesday, dozens of people with a spring in their step hurried across the parking lot, heading for the casino at Hollywood Park.

Pai gow poker? No, they were bound for the horse room at the casino, where they could bet and watch on television as Cigar, 8,800 miles and 12 time zones away, would try to win the $4-million Dubai World Cup.

Once inside, one bettor looked at a diagram of the Dubai track. He was puzzled. “I don’t understand,” he said. “Do they go around twice?”

After Cigar had beaten Soul Of The Matter by a half-length in an exciting stretch duel, the winner’s jockey, Jerry Bailey, noted the resolve of his horse and said that Cigar could indeed have gone around again and won. But no, the Dubai track is 1 1/8 miles, so there was no need for two trips for the race’s 1 1/4 miles. What was confusing was the start of the race from a chute, and a quick run to the first elbow-shaped turn. The second turn came only a quarter-mile after that, and the stretch run was three-eighths of a mile, about three times what it would be at many tracks in the United States. For the first World Cup, the horses never touched what is known as the clubhouse turn at American tracks.

Fifteen minutes before the 7 a.m. post, the odds showed 1-9 for Cigar, with Halling, one of the Sheik Maktoum family’s four horses in the race, the second choice at 6-1 and Soul Of The Matter at 11-1. Those numbers reflected the U.S. off-track betting on the race. Religious considerations prohibit betting on horses in Dubai. The sand track in Dubai has what our tracks don’t have--a nine-hole golf course in the middle--but it lacks what all of our tracks do have--a tote board.

All of the 50 tables at Hollywood Park were filled, as was every stool at the bar, and the rest of the room was wall-to-wall people. There must have been 500 there, and it was not hard to get in one betting line and then realize you were in another. Cigar’s 13-race pre-Dubai winning streak brought them there at this unreal hour. There were 1,000 in attendance at Santa Anita, many of them horsemen taking a break from regular training hours. At the Red Mile, a harness track in Lexington, Ky., an estimated 2,000 turned out.

Ten minutes before post, the odds on Cigar rose slightly to a still-prohibitive 1-5. “He should be even money,” somebody said. “If you’re going to beat him, this is the day. They’ve got all their excuses ready: the bruised foot, the long trip over there, running at night, running on a strange track, no Lasix.”

On the TV screen, the 11 horses were leaving the paddock. Something else you don’t see at U.S. tracks: Signage. The paddock was rimmed with advertisements.

“I’d like to know the money in the pools,” somebody said. “If some plunger bet $200,000 to show on Cigar and he breaks down, you’d get a great price on anybody else.”

They ran the race, and at the top of the interminable stretch, when Cigar took the lead away from another American horse, L’Carriere, a loud cheer went up. But the finish line was still more than a quarter-mile away, and when Burt Bacharach’s Soul Of The Matter and his jockey, Gary Stevens, came out of the pack to challenge, the cheerleaders gulped for a few seconds. During the entire winning streak, no horse had come this close to Cigar. His average winning margin had been about four lengths.

But Cigar was the best, for the 14th consecutive time, and a few strides past the wire Bailey reached over with his right hand and tapped Stevens on his left shoulder, as if to good-naturedly say, “Nice race. Close, but no. . . .”

Hollywood Park’s horse room erupted in applause, even though many had made very little money on him or had foolishly lost while trying to beat him.

Outside the casino, near the parking lot, was Doug Peterson, who trains his horses at Hollywood Park during the Santa Anita meet.

“You know why I root for Cigar,” Peterson said. “There’s Seattle Slew on his bottom side [pedigree line].”

Solar Slew, who couldn’t run a step, is Cigar’s dam and a daughter of Seattle Slew. Peterson trained Seattle Slew when he was voted best older horse in 1978.

“Cigar’s got what champions are made of,” Peterson said. “He wouldn’t let that other horse by him. Two tired horses, though. Cigar couldn’t have been dead fit. That’s why neither one of them was running too straight at the finish.”

In Florida the week before Cigar left for Dubai, his trainer, Bill Mott, seemed particularly edgy about this herculean assignment in a faraway land. Even before Dubai, Mott felt that Cigar’s place alongside the Seattle Slews and the Secretariats was secure, and he had no use for those who suggested otherwise.

“The patch [for the abscessed hoof] is fine,” Mott said one day. “But of course you can’t see underneath with the patch there. You don’t know what’s going on underneath.”

The patch traveled to Dubai as well as the rest of Cigar did. Inside the Hollywood Park casino, the cheering had died down, and most of the crowd had disappeared, working stiffs moving on to wherever working stiffs need to be at that hour of the morning. There were only a few left in the horse room. For them, it was 7:30 a.m., and the first at Santa Anita was less than six hours away. Pai gow, anyone?

Notes

According to jockey agent Vince DeGregory, Julie Krone will leave New York in the fall to begin riding full-time in Southern California. Krone, who has won 3,000 races, more than any other woman, made her first appearance locally when she rode in a match race against Gary Stevens at Santa Anita last Saturday. DeGregory said that she’s scheduled to arrive for the windup of the Oak Tree meeting at Santa Anita after the Breeders’ Cup at Woodbine on Oct. 26. . . . Stevens, Don Brumfield and Jacinto Vasquez are the jockeys on this year’s Hall of Fame ballot. Trainers nominated are Willard Proctor, Bob Wheeler and Jim Conway. Horses in the modern male category include Exceller, Riva Ridge and Sunday Silence. Nominees in the modern female category are Bold ‘N Determined, Bowl Of Flowers and Go For Wand. Borrow, Granville and Sun Beau are in the horses-of-yesteryear group. One person or horse is elected from each category, with the results of the vote of 100 turf writers to be announced the first week of May at Churchill Downs, before the Kentucky Derby.

Chris Clark’s attorney, Douglas W. Otto, said Thursday that his client, who was arrested March 13 and charged with grand theft involving an insurance transaction, is the “victim of a political dispute.” Clark, a former president of the California Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Assn., allegedly overcharged the organization $100,000 for an insurance policy. “When Clark Insurance Services independently discovered the mistake,” Otto said, “the funds were returned to the CHBPA with no official demand from them or any other organization. Once the funds had been returned, [Clark] considered the matter closed. The moneys in question had been in the CHBPA’s hands for over six months when Chris was arrested.” . . . Although the X- rays of his injured ankle were negative, Odyle is out of the Santa Anita Derby on April 6. Odyle, winner of the San Felipe Stakes, probably will get a long rest and miss the Triple Crown series.