Aqueduct: Verrazano may get another chance in Cigar Mile

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Don’t lower the gate on Verrazano’s racing career just yet.

Though his connections announced that last Friday’s Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile – in which Verrazano finished fourth – would be the final start of his career, trainer Todd Pletcher said Monday that the multiple Grade 1-winning 3-year-old could run one more time in the Grade 1 Cigar Mile at Aqueduct on Nov. 30.

The Cigar Mile has a base purse of $500,000, but under the incentives the New York Racing Association has in the conditions of the race, any Grade 1 winner would be running for the winner’s share of $750,000. Also, a Breeders’ Cup winner would run for the winner’s share of $1 million.

Verrazano was beaten seven lengths by Goldencents in the Dirt Mile. He was jostled in between horses entering the first turn and could not make up ground on a Santa Anita main track that had a pronounced speed bias.

“I don’t think we got a fair run at it the other day,” Pletcher said Monday in his Belmont Park office. “If he trains accordingly, we’ll point to the Cigar Mile.”

Verrazano, who won the Wood Memorial over Aqueduct’s main track in the spring as well as the Haskell at Monmouth in July, will stand at Ashford Stud beginning next year.

Pletcher had to scratch Graydar from the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile due to a quarter crack. At the time, he said he was hopeful of getting him to the Cigar Mile, but he said Monday “I don’t know if we’re going to make it; it’s going to be touch and go.”

Pletcher said he may run Forty Tales in the Cigar Mile. Others pointing to that race include Dirt Mile runner-up Golden Ticket and Alpha, who finished eighth in the Dirt Mile.

Verrazano’s fourth-place finish was part of a disappointing Breeders’ Cup for Pletcher, who went winless with eight starters in six races. His best results were Havana’s runner-up finish in the Juvenile and Authenticity’s third-place finish in the Distaff.

“Any time you don’t win one, it’s disappointing,” Pletcher said. “Like I said before, you always respect how hard they are to win.”

Princess of Sylmar finished sixth behind the 3-year-old Beholder in the Distaff after stumbling at the break and hitting the side of the gate. Pletcher said Princess of Sylmar was scheduled to arrive at WinStar Farm on Monday for a 45- to 60-day break before preparing for a 4-year-old campaign.

Pletcher understands the Distaff result could impact Princess of Sylmar’s chances to win an Eclipse Award as champion 3-year-old filly despite a r é sum é that includes four Grade 1 victories – the Kentucky Oaks, Coaching Club American Oaks, Alabama, and Beldame.

“Hoping people look at her body of work; she beat Beholder in the Kentucky Oaks on a neutral site,” Pletcher said. “Eclipse voters, as a rule, often forget what happens the first 10 months of the year.”

Pletcher said Havana, winner of the Grade 1 Champagne, was sent to Palm Meadows where he would begin training toward a 3-year-old campaign that could start in the Holy Bull Stakes at Gulfstream on Jan. 25.

Brown also disappointed in results

Like Pletcher – and virtually every East Coast-based trainer not named Jeremiah Englehart – Chad Brown was disappointed in his showing at the Breeders’ Cup, where he went winless with 10 starters.

“When you run that many horses I would have liked to have at least come away with one,” Brown said. “I told people that I’d be happy to win just one race; I know how hard they are to win and I never took that for granted.”

Brown had a runner-up finish by T esta Rossi in the Juvenile Fillies Turf as well as a third-place finish by Alterite in the Filly and Mare Turf. Brown felt Summer Applause (fourth in the Filly and Mare Sprint) and Last Gunfighter (fifth in the Classic) “ran as well as they possibly could and got the highest placing they possibly could.”

Brown’s biggest disappointments were Bobby’s Kitten (third as the favorite in the Juvenile Turf), Big Blue Kitten (eighth in the Turf), and Real Solution (ninth in the Turf).

Brown said eight of his BC horses were sent to south Florida on Monday. Last Gunfighter was sent to New York before likely heading to Florida, while Summer Applause was in the catalog for Monday’s Fasig-Tipton sale in Kentucky.