This Is Definitely One Great Cigar : Breeders' Cup: He puts away field in Classic to complete a perfect year. Inside Information is other dominating performer.

By BILL CHRISTINE

Oct. 29, 1995 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

ELMONT, N.Y. — Owner Allen Paulson, trainer Bill Mott and jockey Jerry Bailey have been saying all along that their Cigar ranks with some of the best horses that ever ran.

In some quarters, this braggadocio has been challenged and poked with holes. Nick Zito, who has trained two Kentucky Derby winners, says that Cigar is no Secretariat. Some other trainers have said that Holy Bull, the 1994 horse of the year, would be a good match for Cigar.

For their part, Paulson, Mott and Bailey are entitled to go right on crowing after what Cigar accomplished Saturday on a rainy day that ended in sunshine at Belmont Park.

Before a disappointing crowd of 37,246--smallest in the 12-year history of the Breeders’ Cup--the 5-year-old not only won the $3-million Classic, he crushed the opposition. Breaking from an outside post position and running on a muddy track that he doesn’t like, he won by 2 1/2 lengths and covered 1 1/4 miles in 1:59 2/5, breaking the Classic record of 2:00 1/5 set by Sunday Silence in 1989 and matched by A.P. Indy three years later.

“I haven’t seen him run over jumps [steeplechasing],” Mott cracked shortly after the race, “but maybe that’s the next thing he’ll have to prove.”

Cigar, a disappointment on the grass in California before Paulson sent him to Mott and he found his true foot on dirt, finished the year with his 10th consecutive victory and extended his overall winning streak to 12 races. When the Eclipse Awards votes are tallied at the end of the year, he will become the first horse of the year to go undefeated for 12 months since Spectacular Bid in 1980.

“I didn’t see Secretariat, but this is the best horse I’ve ever been around,” said Bailey, 38, who started riding in 1974, the year after the intrepid red horse swept the Triple Crown.

Bailey is hanging up some fancy Breeders’ Cup numbers of his own. He has ridden the last three winners of the Classic--Concern last year and Arcangues in 1993--and he also won the race with Black Tie Affair in 1991. Earlier Saturday, when rain was still tattooing the gooey Belmont racing strip, Bailey also won the first of the seven Breeders’ Cup races, the $1-million Juvenile Fillies, with My Flag, who got up in the last jump just the way her dam, Personal Ensign, did to win the Distaff at Churchill Downs in 1988.

Other than his Classic victories, Bailey had been 0 for 24 in Breeders’ Cup races before My Flag. Shug McGaughey, who trains My Flag for Ogden Phipps, also did a reprise, winning the $1-million Distaff by 13 1/2 lengths with Inside Information, a 4-year-old filly from the stable of Dinny Phipps, who is the son of My Flag’s owner.

In other Breeders’ Cup races, there was something for virtually everyone except Wayne Lukas, who failed to add to his record 12 victories in the series while coming close with the favorites in the Juvenile Fillies and Juvenile.

Two California-based horses scored victories: Northern Spur won the $2-million Turf and Desert Stormer, a 5-year-old mare, won the $1-million Sprint. The Europeans emerged with a victory when Ridgewood Pearl, a British- bred filly whose career began in Ireland, beat males in the $1-million Mile. And owner Ernie Paragallo came up a winner in the $1-million Juvenile with Unbridled’s Song, a colt that was returned to him with a flake in one of his ankles after Paragallo thought he had sold him for $1.4 million.

Besides Ridgewood Pearl, the Europeans also finished second through fifth in the Turf. But Halling, the English colt whose eight consecutive victories--none on dirt--sent him off at a respectable 8-1 in the Classic, finished last in the 11-horse race.

L’Carriere, at 51-1, finished second, a head in front of Unaccounted For, and after them, in order, came Soul Of The Matter, Star Standard, Peaks And Valleys, Tinners Way, Concern, French Deputy, Jed Forest and Halling. They’re all a league or more below Cigar, whose record time included a startling final quarter mile of 22 4/5 seconds. By way of comparison, Secretariat, when he won the Kentucky Derby in a record 1:59 2/5, ran the closing quarter in an estimated 22 4/5.

“My horse ran very hard, but I couldn’t beat the winner,” said Jorge Chavez, who rode L’Carriere. “The winner is No. 1 in the world right now. It’s impossible to beat that horse.”

Mott said that Cigar will now get a rest while he and Paulson map out a campaign for next year. They both want to run in a new race, the $4-million Dubai World Cup on March 27, and Cigar would require at least one prep race for that assignment, which would come about 6,900 miles away from New York.

Bailey rode Cigar differently Saturday, to compensate for the start from the No. 10 post position at an angle on Belmont’s clubhouse turn.

“He usually wants to go to the lead,” Bailey said, “but then you grab him and he takes back. For this race, though, if I grabbed him coming out of the gate, he might have relaxed and then I could have been hung 10 wide. So he broke like a rocket, and I let him. After a while, I wished I hadn’t, because he was very strong and it took me three-eighths of a mile to get him back.”

Star Standard and L’Carriere battled for the lead through the first three-quarters of a mile, with Bailey trying to take some of the steam out of Cigar in third place. Cigar moved up approaching the quarter pole and Bailey looked over toward the fence, where he saw that Unaccounted For was coming. Unaccounted For had finished second, beaten by one length, in Cigar’s Jockey Club Gold Cup victory at Belmont three weeks ago.

“I didn’t want to give him a chance,” Bailey said. “I decided to move. It was time to play catch me if you can.”

Bailey tapped Cigar with the whip a couple of times. Even Mott, who usually watches his horses quietly, let himself go and began screaming from his box seat.

“I pulled my socks up once before the race,” Mott said. “I used to do that before my high school wrestling matches, and that seemed to settle me down some.”

In the paddock before the Classic, a trainer, identified by Mott as Bobby Frankel, who saddled Tinners Way, complained about the rear shoes Cigar was wearing. The stewards had them examined, and the delay resulted in Cigar being the last horse to reach the track.

“They’re the same ones he’s worn all year,” Mott said. “I guess the trainer was trying to claim foul and be a crybaby. It was like a jockey claiming foul in a race when they’ve got no business making a claim.”

Mott then went on to more pleasant things.

“This was his most important race,” he said. “He rose to the occasion, and did it in the way we’ve seen him do it so many times before.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The Winners

* $1-MILLION JUVENILE FILLIES

My Flag (Bailey) $9

* $1-MILLION SPRINT

Desert Stormer (Desormeaux) $31

* $1-MILLION DISTAFF

Inside Information (Smith) $3.60

* $1-MILLION MILE

Ridgewood Pearl (Murtagh) $7.10