Oft-injured Cigar Street emerges as BC Classic contender
Twice in his career, Cigar Street has been sidelined by serious injuries, but he has come back as good as ever this fall, and his victory Saturday in the Homecoming Classic at Churchill Downs has left his connections contemplating a run in the $5 million Breeders’ Cup Classic on Nov. 1 at Santa Anita, trainer Bill Mott said Wednesday.
The Homecoming Classic was only the second start this year for Cigar Street following a 16-month layoff because of a cannon-bone fracture, the second he has suffered during his oft-interrupted career.
“I thought it was a very good race, considering he’d been off for such a long time,” Mott said from Saratoga. “It was very typical of him.”
Now age 5, Cigar Street has raced a mere eight times, but he has won five starts, including the Grade 3 Skip Away at Gulfstream Park in March 2013.
Owing to his most-recent injury, Cigar Street was off from that race until Aug. 22, when he was second over a sloppy, sealed Saratoga track in an allowance race. Off just that one prep, he moved forward and captured the Homecoming Classic while earning a Beyer Speed Figure of 101, equal to what Shared Belief got in the Awesome Again Stakes at Santa Anita on Saturday.
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Mott said Cigar Street was en route Wednesday from Churchill Downs to Belmont Park, where he will train for the next few weeks before a decision is made regarding the Breeders’ Cup. Mott was worried that Cigar Street, owing to not having won a graded stakes this calendar year, would have to be picked by the Breeders’ Cup selection committee to get into the field. But that would only apply if the field entered for the BC Classic exceeds the maximum of 14 runners, and as of now, that does not appear to be the case.
Mott, a Hall of Famer, has won the BC Classic twice, with Cigar in 1995, and Drosselmeyer in 2011.
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Shared Belief, the ante-post favorite for the BC Classic, returned to Golden Gate Fields on Monday and will have an easy several days before returning to serious training. He will not return to Santa Anita until the week of the Breeders’ Cup.
“I won’t take him back to the track for a few days yet. I always give him a few days after the race,” Jerry Hollendorfer, his trainer and co-owner, said Wednesday from Golden Gate. “He came out of the race very well.”