Divining Rod joins expected field of nine for Cigar Mile

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – A field of nine is expected to be entered Wednesday for Saturday’s $500,000 Cigar Mile at Aqueduct, the last Grade 1 race of the year on the New York Racing Association circuit.

The latest runner to commit to the race is Divining Rod, a graded stakes winner in 2015 who has won two of three starts in 2016 after returning from a layoff of more than a year.

Divining Rod, who won the Grade 3 Lexington Stakes at Keeneland in spring 2015, won two allowance races at Parx Racing this year and, most recently, finished second behind runaway winner Noble Bird in the Grade 2 Fayette at Keeneland.

Arnaud Delacour, trainer of Divining Rod, also gave thought to running the Tapit colt in Friday’s Grade 1 Clark Handicap at Churchill Downs, but felt the nine-furlong distance and field composition of that race made the Cigar Mile a better option. There are no Grade 1 winners in the Cigar Mile field.

“With him, I’d rather run a mile versus the mile and an eighth,” Delacour said Monday.

Divining Rod, third to American Pharoah in the 2015 Preakness, went to the sidelines following a fifth-place finish as the favorite in the Grade 3 Smarty Jones at Parx in August 2015. Delacour said the main issue was bone bruising, but Divining Rod’s comeback was delayed by other issues such as a quarter crack and a splint bone injury.

He won a pair of two-turn, one-mile allowance races at Parx in a three-week span before the Fayette.

“At Parx, we were trying to get his confidence back, so he had easier races,” Delacour said. “My jock was not aggressive with him, so I think we have a little bit more than we had at Parx.”

His jockey was Daniel Centeno, who will ride Divining Rod in the Cigar Mile.

Divining Rod is the co-second highweight at 119 pounds for the Cigar Mile. Also assigned 119 was Ocean Knight, recently third in the Grade 2 Kelso at Belmont Park behind Anchor Down, the assigned 121-pound highweight and potential Cigar Mile favorite.

Trainer Chad Brown is expected to enter a trio of 3-year-olds – Connect (118), Economic Model (116), and Threefiveindia (116) – in the Cigar Mile. Trainer Barclay Tagg will enter 3-year-olds Realm (114) and Tale of S’avall (114). War Story (116), eighth in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, also will enter.

On Monday, Divining Rod worked five furlongs in 1:00.80 at the Fair Hill Training Center in northeast Maryland in company with the 2-year-old No Dozing, whom Delacour is planning to run in Saturday’s Grade 2, $300,000 Remsen Stakes on the Cigar Mile undercard.

No Dozing, a son of Union Rags, won his first two starts sprinting before finishing fourth, beaten four lengths, in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity at Keeneland on Oct. 8. Classic Empire, who won the Futurity, came back to win the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Santa Anita. Gunnevera, fifth in the Futurity, came back to win last Saturday’s $1 million Delta Downs Jackpot.

“He broke just okay, got shut off a little, but then was hung three or four wide all the way,” Delacour said of No Dozing. “Going two turns for the first time, that’s a little hard. We got beat four lengths by the horse that won the Breeders’ Cup, so I thought that was a solid race.”

Delacour said Centeno would ride No Dozing as well, becoming the fourth different jockey to ride him.

Others expected to enter the Remsen include impressive maiden winners Mo Town, Takaful, and Hookup as well You’re To Blame, Tale of Silence, Win With Pride, Tellmeafookystory, and Newman.

Miss Sky Warrior, winner of the Grade 3 Tempted here in her last start, will return for Saturday’s Grade 2, $300,000 Demoiselle for 2-year-old fillies. She tops a field that is expected to include Jamyson ’n Ginger, the fifth-place finisher in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies; Libby’s Tail, beaten a head in the Grade 1 Frizette; and Ladies Day, Elandess, Majestic Bonnie, Spirituality, and possibly Bonita Bianca.

Lewis Bay, a 5 1/4-length winner in the Grade 3 Turnback the Alarm on Oct. 29, is expected to head the field for Saturday’s Grade 3, $250,000 Comely for 3-year-old fillies. She will be joined by her stablemate Going for Broke, second to Songbird in the Grade 1 Alabama, as well as several runners from trainer Todd Pletcher’s barn which could include Mo d’Amour, Always on My Mind, and Unbridled Mo. Flora Dora and Verve’s Tale also are likely.