Mind Control to make final start in Cigar Mile

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – For a horse that’s won 10 stakes, including two Grade 1s at Saratoga, Mind Control seems a bit underappreciated. As he prepares to make the final start of his highly successful career in Saturday’s Grade 1, $750,000 Cigar Mile at Aqueduct, his connections do not yet have a deal for the 6-year-old’s breeding rights.

“We have not finalized plans to stand him,” said Rick Sacco, racing manager for the Brunetti family’s Red Oak Stable, which owns the horse with Sol Kumin’s Madaket Stables.

Perhaps a victory in the Cigar Mile will help seal any pending deal. Mind Control, who at 2 won the Hopeful and at 3 the H. Allen Jerkens, is coming off a victory in the Parx Dirt Mile, a race in which he actually crossed the wire second but was placed first after the stewards disqualified Far Mo Power for interfering with Mind Control.

The Parx Dirt Mile was to be Mind Control’s prep for the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile. But the Parx race, combined with Mind Control’s troubled third in the Charles Town Classic a month earlier, “took a little starch out of him,” Sacco said.

Thus, with the Cigar Mile out there and Mind Control having won four stakes at Aqueduct in his career, Sacco and trainer Todd Pletcher agreed to point for that prestigious race.

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“It was the time in between races. He loves Aqueduct, it’s a Grade 1, let’s let him rebound and gives him the sufficient time,” Sacco said.

Mind Control is a son of Stay Thirsty out of the mare Feel That Fire, a half-sister to King for a Day, who beat Maximum Security in the 2019 Pegasus Stakes at Monmouth Park. Mind Control is a half-brother to the graded stakes-placed Goddess of Fire and to the unraced 2-year-old filly White Hot Gold, who is scheduled to debut Saturday at Tampa Bay Downs, according to Sacco.

Mind Control has shown a grittiness to him that has carried him to narrow victories in the Grade 1 Jerkens, Grade 3 Toboggan, and the 2021 Parx Dirt Mile when he was passed by Met Mile winner Silver State in deep stretch only to come back on and beat him.

John Velazquez will be in from California to ride Mind Control, who is the 122-pound highweight for the Cigar. Those expected to face him include Get Her Number (120), Zandon (120), Double Crown (119), O Besos (119), Baby Yoda (118), and White Abarrio (118).

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