The news of Groupie Doll’s retirement following a second straight win in the
Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint on November 2 was, if not greatly exaggerated,
slightly premature. Purchased several days afterward by Mandy Pope’s Whisper
Hill Farm for $3.1 million at the Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale, Pope
sent the five-year-old mare back to trainer Buff Bradley to take another shot at
Saturday’s Grade 1
Cigar Mile
Handicap at Aqueduct.
A heartbreaking second by a nose to Stay Thirsty in last year’s Cigar Mile
when attempting to garner some Horse of the Year support, Groupie Doll is not
considered a leading candidate for the same award this time. However, she likely
clinched her second Eclipse as the nation’s leading female sprinter with a game
half-length triumph in the Filly & Mare Sprint at Santa Anita, which followed an
earlier score in the Presque Isle Downs Masters. Assigned 118 pounds for
Saturday’s race, she is the theoretical highweight when the three-pound sex
allowance is taken into account.
The three-year-old Goldencents is coming off a stellar performance in the
November Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, where he overcame a wide draw and set taxing
splits of :22, :44 3/5, and 1:08 3/5 en route to a 2 3/4-length score. Perhaps
aided to some degree by a speed-favoring surface, the Doug O’Neill trainee was
hardly lacking the class to win on his own merits. Victorious in the Santa Anita
Derby last spring, he was a narrowly-beaten second in a trio of leading sprints
— the Bing Crosby, Pat O’Brien and Santa Anita Sprint Championship — after his
summer freshening.
Verrazano, like Groupie Doll, will be headed into retirement following the
Cigar Mile. The winner this season of the Haskell Invitational, Wood Memorial,
Tampa Bay Derby and Pegasus, Verrazano has had a brief, feat-or-famine type of
career, finishing fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile and seventh in the
Travers in his last two outings for which he was favored. He will be joined by
fellow Todd Pletcher-trained sophomores Forty Tales, a multiple Grade 2 winner,
and Capo Bastone, the King’s Bishop winner, in the Cigar Mile starting gate.
The venerable seven-year-old Flat Out makes his Big A debut on Saturday after
doing very good work across town at Belmont Park for the last several seasons. A
two-time winner of the Jockey Club Gold Cup and Suburban Handicap, Flat Out
demonstrated his one-turn mile credentials earlier this year with a head defeat
of Cross Traffic in the Westchester. The Bill Mott trainee exits a sub-par
eighth-place effort in the Breeders’ Cup Classic.
Clearly Now ran a huge race in the seven-furlong Bold Ruler Handicap last
month, pulling up 1 1/2 lengths to the good of Forty Tales. Wearing blinkers for
the first time, Clearly Now added a second stakes win to a record that also
included a victory in the Swale at Gulfstream last March.
Stretching out in distance off recent races are Private Zone, who captured
the six-furlong Vosburgh two back before finishing 10th in the Breeders’ Cup
Sprint, and Laugh Track, a fast-closing second in the Sprint for trainer Mark
Casse.
Longshots in the Cigar Mile include the multiple New York-bred stakes winner
Saratoga Snacks and Praetereo, an impressive Aqueduct allowance winner on
November 8.
The talent and depth of this year’s Cigar Mile was made possible in part by
NYRA’s decision to introduce purse incentives to lure Breeders’ Cup winners and
previous Grade 1 winners to the race. Breeders’ Cup winners Groupie Doll and
Goldencents are running for a $1 million purse ($600,000 to the winner), while
Capo Bastone, Flat Out, Verrazano, and Private Zone race for $750,000 ($450,000
winner’s share). Praetereo, Forty Tales, Clearly Now, Laugh Track, and Saratoga
Snacks are running for the base purse of $500,000 ($300,000 to the winner).
Earlier on the card, the lightly-raced Wedding Toast will face nine other
three-year-old fillies in the Grade 3, $400,000
Comely at
1 1/8 miles. The Darley homebred enters on a three-race win streak, most
recently capturing the $100,000 Belle Cherie overnight stakes by 3 1/2 lengths
on October 25.
Graded stakes winners My Happy Face and Sky Girl are also in the Comely
lineup. My Happy Face, who captured the Tempted at Aqueduct a year ago, placed
in the Coaching Club American Oaks and Test earlier this year, while Sky Girl
landed the seven-furlong Dogwood at Churchill Downs two starts back. The field
also includes Marathon Lady, who’s placed in graded stakes in Kentucky,
Arkansas, Maryland, and New York this term.
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