BC Dirt Mile winner Spun to Run being considered for Cigar Mile

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Spun to Run, the upset winner of the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, will be considered for the Grade 1, $750,000 Cigar Mile at Aqueduct on Dec. 7, but owner Robert Donaldson said it would be a least another week to 10 days before any decisions are made on where the 3-year-old will run next.

“There are so many options we’re looking at,” Donaldson said Friday. “People are calling us about the Saudi Cup. I got to let the horse tell us where we’re going. We’ll see what he’s telling us in seven to 10 days. The Cigar Mile’s definitely in play.”

Donaldson spoke with a bit of laryngitis, though he said it wasn’t as a result of screaming at the Breeders’ Cup.

“I’m not much of a yeller,” Donaldson said. “I woke up [Thursday] morning and I lost my voice.”

Trainer Juan Carlos Guerrero is suffering from some back and hip pain. Fortunately, Spun to Run has come out of the race better than both his owner and trainer, Donaldson said.

Spun to Run is at Parx and will train there while his connections decide where to run next. Donaldson explained that Spun to Run suffered from the same entrapped epiglottis that forced Omaha Beach to scratch from the Kentucky Derby.

Donaldson said Spun to Run was supposed to run in the Federico Tesio at Pimlico in April as a stepping-stone to the Preakness. Since the surgery, Spun to Run has won three of five starts with a third-place finish to Maximum Security in the Grade 1 Haskell and a fifth to Math Wizard in the Pennsylvania Derby where he was rated behind a slow pace by Paco Lopez.

In the Dirt Mile, Spun to Run won in front-running fashion under Irad Ortiz Jr.

“We were looking for somebody to ride him the way we knew he wanted to be ridden,” Donaldson said. “Irad really, really did a nice job.”

◗ Don Fuller, a longtime senior executive in the totalizator business, died on Sept. 30 in Berryville, Va. He was 80 years old.

Fuller started with the American Tote Company (Amtote) in 1970 as a field service coordinator, helping to implement its data processing system for mutuel cashier accounting before the advent of the computerized sell/cash terminals.

He later became Amtote’s executive vice president of sales and customer service, which included responsibility for the company worldwide. He left Amtote in 1993 and a year later joined United Tote, becoming that company’s president and CEO until his retirement in 2002.