Close, But No Cigars

Everybody asks Bill Mott, “Where is Cigar?” Or, “How is Cigar?” Or, “What’s new with Cigar?”

The answer is:

Cigar is alive and well and living in Paris, trying to make Cigarettes.

A month or so ago, Mott went to Paris--Kentucky, not that place in France--to visit the superhorse. He was Cigar’s trainer.

“He looked happy and healthy,” Mott reports. “He looked like he was enjoying life.”

And . . . any news?

Not yet. No runs, no hits, no heirs.

A fertility expert has Cigar under his care at the farm. When a horse wins as often as Cigar did, human beings take pleasure in putting him out to stud. They want that championship gene passed along. They want results.

In some cases, all it takes is a roll in the hay.

Other times, there is nothing to do but wait. Wait and hope, for the sound of little hoofbeats.

A trainer has his own kind of waiting game.

Will another horse that good ever come my way again? Have I had my superhorse for this lifetime?

“I’ve had those feelings, sure,” Bill Mott says.

He is here at Hollywood Park for the Breeders’ Cup, with five horses entered in Saturday’s races.

“When I had Theatrical, who was my first champion, I remember telling myself, ‘Well, I guess that’s the best horse I’ll ever have.’

“Then along came Paradise Creek.”

Theatrical, the best male turf horse of 1987, won that year’s Breeders’ Cup Turf race.

Paradise Creek, a close second in the 1992 Breeders’ Cup Mile, won that year’s Hollywood Derby.

And then there was Fraise, a horse saddled by Mott that won the Turf race at that ’92 Breeders’ Cup.

A pretty strong run, for any trainer.

For Mott, though, the best was yet to come. Having trained for some illustrious names--Sheik Mohammed al Maktoum, Allen and Madeleine Paulson, Henryk de Kwiatkowski--he had his fair share of fine horseflesh. He was top trainer at Churchill Downs during a six-year stretch. He became private trainer to Bert and Diana Firestone, earning them more than $4 million in his first full year.

He kicked up a lot of dust for a South Dakota kid who saddled his first winner at 15, a $320 mare called My Assets.

“Sometimes, somebody will bring that up and I’ll think about it,” says Mott, 44 now and among North America’s most successful trainers. “But not very often. Usually, I’m a type of person who is more inclined to look ahead than to look back.”

It is one thing to leave South Dakota the day after graduating from high school to seek a career training horses.

It is quite another to train the two-time horse of the year.

“People wonder if Cigar is the best horse I ever had, or ever will have. Well, maybe he is. I know that any horse that comes along now, I’m forced to compare to him.”

Geri, for example.

He might be Mott’s best shot Saturday. For anyone lucky enough to have witnessed Geri’s workout Thursday on the Hollywood turf course, the horse’s chances in the Breeders’ Cup Mile seemed clear-cut.

A winner by six lengths at Belmont in a June allowance race, Geri ran so well that jockey Chris Antley said afterward, “He was scary.”

Oh, and who was Geri’s sire?

Theatrical.

At age 5, Geri changed from a dirt horse to a turf horse. He did win six in a row on dirt, but didn’t look the same after failing to take the Hollywood Gold Cup, whereupon Mott said, “We thought maybe it was time for a change.”

With horses, what goes around, comes around. Cigar was bred for the turf, but didn’t go on his winning streak until he was shifted to dirt.

You watch, you wait.

Mott has two horses--Dowty and Down The Aisle--entered in the Classic, and an entry--Ajina and Escena--in the Distaff, giving him five runs for the money. (It looks as if his Lucayan Prince won’t go in the Sprint, as first thought.)

Into his employers’ saddlebags, Mott already has put more than $6.4 million this year.

And in an apple crate at home, he keeps souvenirs and clippings of a horse called Cigar, who kicked ash.

“I don’t normally do that with the horses,” he says. “But something told me with this horse, I should save a few things.”

All that’s missing now is an album of baby pictures.