Mandella Would’ve Helped if Shoe Were on the Other Foot

A few days ago, trainer Richard Mandella called Bill Mott at Belmont Park. Mandella needed a blacksmith to re-shoe Talloires, the horse he’s running Saturday in the $2-million Breeders’ Cup Turf at Woodbine, and he knew that Mott travels with one, because of Cigar’s hoof problems.

“Who’s the horse?” Mott asked Mandella.

“Talloires,” Mandella said.

“Yeah, I’ll get him to do it,” Mott said. “But what we’d really like is a crack at Dare And Go and Atticus.”

Mott doesn’t have to worry about Talloires, because the trainer of Cigar doesn’t have a horse entered in the Turf. But Cigar, trying to redeem himself after winning 16 consecutive races, then losing two of his last three, must beat Dare And Go and Atticus, Mandella’s two-ply entry in the $4-million Breeders’ Cup Classic here Saturday.

Dare And Go already has beaten Cigar, who was victimized by a speed duel with another of Mandella’s horses, Siphon, in the Pacific Classic at Del Mar in August. And Atticus, undefeated in two starts on dirt after winning only three of 12 races on grass, showed how dangerous he can be a month ago at Turfway Park, rolling to an uncontested lead and winning easily on a sloppy track in the Kentucky Cup Classic.

In Cigar’s two recent defeats, at Del Mar and against Skip Away in the Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont, owner Allen Paulson’s 6-year-old was either too close to a sizzling pace or too far behind ho-hum fractions. Talking Thursday about jockey Jerry Bailey, Mott said, “You’ve just got to ride this horse and not worry about what’s happened in the past.”

Paulson and the veteran Bailey, a 1995 inductee into the Racing Hall of Fame, have discussed how Cigar has been ridden.

“Jerry says that he has trouble judging the pace with Cigar,” Paulson said. “He said that the horse glides along so effortlessly that it’s hard to tell how fast or slow he’s going.”

Cigar bounced back easily from a :48 1/5 half-mile workout at Belmont on Wednesday. Flown to Toronto from New York, he spent Wednesday night in the barn, then was led through the paddock and saddling ring Thursday and was jogged once around Woodbine’s one-mile dirt oval.

There have been suggestions that he might be showing his age, slowing down a step because of the rigors of the last two years. Mott doesn’t think so.

“He should be showing wear and tear, and maybe giving us an excuse to tail off,” Mott said. “But as far as I’m concerned, there are a lot of similarities between this horse and the one that won this race a year ago. In a couple of his races, he hasn’t shown that old flair down the backside, but he eats and trains as well as he ever has.

“He didn’t exactly run a terrible race in California. And in his last race, he only got beaten [by] a head. He still ran a winning race. If he runs that same race, nine out of 10 times he’ll win the first prize.”

Cigar had a troublesome quarter crack in his right front hoof re-patched last week. He drifted out noticeably in the Jockey Club Gold Cup, sometimes a sign that a horse is hurting.

“He did that when Jerry hit him left-handed,” Mott said. “He hit him from that side pretty hard. Jerry said that he went to the left hand because Cigar didn’t respond to getting hit from the right. The horse hasn’t been hit that hard since Dubai [March 27]. He tried to drift that time too, and he did a little bit, but the horse outside him, Soul Of The Matter, kept him from drifting too much.”

Mott would prefer that this is the finale for Cigar, who goes to stud next year at a probable fee of $100,000 per breeding. This will be his 33rd start. He has won 19 times and earned $9.5 million, a record for North America. But Paulson is entertaining the idea of running one more time, perhaps in California, perhaps against Helissio, the Arc de Triomphe winner, in a match race in Paris that could be worth $5 million to $10 million.

“It’s an interesting deal,” Paulson said. “But we’re not going to do anything about it until after Saturday’s race. Anything else would be premature.”

In last year’s Classic, Cigar was a 2 1/2-length winner over L’Carriere at Belmont. None of Saturday’s 13 rivals ran in that race.

That win, and the victory in the desert at Dubai, are the highlights of Cigar’s career for his trainer.

“They would be the super efforts,” Mott said. “He’s had more impressive wins and he’s had easier wins, but those were the two big ones. One because he had to do so much to get there, and once there it was a hard-fought battle to win. The other because it was the culmination of a perfect year.”

Horse Racing Notes

Mysteriously, a Woodbine horse, suffered an undisclosed training injury and is expected to be scratched from the Breeders’ Cup Distaff. That reduces the field to six--Jewel Princess, Serena’s Song, My Flag, Top Secret, Clear Mandate and Different, who is the 9-5 favorite. Jewel Princess, who is 3-1, drew the unfavorable inside post that shouldn’t matter as much in a small field. Jewel Princess, trained by Wally Dollase, worked three furlongs in :37 1/5. . . . Another Dollase horse, Helmsman, drew the inside post in the 14-horse Mile and his third hopeful, Windsharp, will break from next to the outside in the Turf. “Helmsman runs near the front,” Dollase said, “and I’m concerned that he could get crowded inside there in so large a field.”

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Event at

a Glance

* WHAT: 13th Breeders’ Cup, with purses totaling $11 million for seven races.

* WHEN: Saturday, with the approximate post time of the first race, the Juvenile Fillies, at 10:50 a.m. Pacific. The approximate time of the final race, the Classic, is 2:35 p.m. Pacific.

* WHERE: Woodbine Racecourse (1-mile oval track) in Toronto.

* ORDER OF RACES: Juvenile Fillies, Sprint, Distaff, Mile (on turf), Juveniles, Turf, Classic

* TV: Channel 4, with coverage starting at 10:30 a.m. Pacific.