Richard Mandella was being complimented on extending the hospitality of a stall in his Del Mar shedrow to accommodate Knightsbridge, the deserving favorite for the $1 million Pacific Classic Stakes (G1) who has been sent west by Bill Mott. After all, Mandella will be trying his best to beat Knightsbridge with outsider Subsanador, in an attempt to repeat history.
"He didn't ask," Mandella said. "His horse just showed up without him."
To which Mott replied:
"At the very least he owes me a stall, after what he did 30 years ago."
Won't these guys ever let it go?
A lot has happened in the three decades since the 1996 Classic, a mile-and-one-quarter main-track test that will be renewed Aug. 22 for the 36th time. Both Mott and Mandella have become Hall of Famers—and grandfathers. The Classic has been won by such stars as California Chrome , Beholder, and Flightline . The side-by-side barns from which Mott and Mandella sent forth their warriors for the '96 Classic are long gone, replaced by two massive, multipurpose structures that host the hog and sheep exhibits offered during the Del Mar Fair. Mandella's horses live in one of them.
"That's OK," Mott said. "That's kind of how I started out in Lincoln, Nebraska, going back to my roots."
The more than 44,000 fans and some 200 members of the media who showed up in 1996 to see if reigning Horse of the Year Cigar could extend his winning streak to 17 races seems like a number from a time out of mind. There was a respectable 24,155 in the house to watch California Chrome defeat defending Classic champ Beholder in 2016. But by 2022, only 12,077 of the faithful can lay claim to being present when Flightline sailed home by 19 1/4 lengths.
Such was the appeal of Cigar, and to be a witness to his Pacific Classic, in all its glorious drama, was to be a part of racing's deepest heartbeat. He lost to Dare and Go, as every schoolchild knows, but lost nothing in defeat.
Your reporter was in the process of compiling Cigar's biography at the time. Here are a few of the memories that linger.
Cigar arrived at Ontario International Airport, a hundred miles north of Del Mar, on the morning of Thursday, Aug. 8, two days before the race. Mott and Jim Bayes, blacksmith to the stars, accompanied the horse, prompting a sympathetic journalist to offer them a ride, following Cigar's trailer down the interstate. If nothing else, the conversation would be entertaining. Or it would have been, if they both hadn't fallen asleep about 10 minutes into the drive.
The next morning, much to the displeasure of a handful of local trainers, the track was briefly closed in order to let Cigar gallop alone, in all his regal splendor. This was not Mott's idea, and he let management know it was a precaution far from necessary. The next morning, race day, management took a step back and let the six runners in the Classic have a gallop session to themselves.
Scores of visitors and media milled around the converted Quonset hut of a barn where Bill Shoemaker trained his horses from a wheelchair and Cigar made his temporary home. Right next door, Mandella was preparing Dare and Go and Siphon for the Classic, amused by the occasional reporter who wandered over to wonder aloud how it would feel to be another of Cigar's victims.
Mandella, of course, already knew. The trainer had left a piece of his heart in the United Arab Emirates the previous March when Burt Bacharach's Soul of the Matter looked like the winner of the Dubai World Cup until Cigar made one final surge. When asked how long it took to get over the bitter defeat, Mandella said he'd let us know when it happened.
After going almost two years and 16 races without a loss, the 6-year-old Cigar had acquired a unique collection of hardcore fans and persistent groupies. No horse since John Henry, in the early 1980s, had garnered such attention over an extended period of time.
"There were guards at either end of the barn to keep people away," Mott recalled. "But there was a girl who walked right in. She looked important, was dressed nicely, and she had a clipboard, obviously official. If you've got a clipboard, you can get about anywhere.
"So she ducked into Cigar's stall, grabbed some manure, and ran away," Mott added. "We never saw her again."
If there are any doubts that pace makes every race, at any level, one need only to review the 1996 Pacific Classic. The Cigar camp was wary of Siphon's proven speed over a route of ground, having chased him in the 1996 Hollywood Gold Cup (G1) with Geri, like Cigar owned by Allen Paulson. In the Classic, Jerry (not Geri) Bailey pressed Siphon with Cigar through a rapid 6 furlongs to reach the quarter pole in 1:33 and change for the mile. Such an internal fraction set up Dare and Go to pounce on the vulnerable champion and win going away.
Then came the hush, with only a few murmurs of amazement bubbling up from the throng. Mandella, jockey Alex Solis, and their families were celebrating in a vacuum. Cigar was greeted upon his return with applause and cheers, while Dare and Go posed, oblivious to the shock waves he'd set loose.
Later in the day, after the steady stream of condolences died down, Mott tried to put the end of the streak in perspective.
"The expectations for Cigar are incredibly high," he said. "I mean, for a long time he was able to overcome all the things that get even the best horses beat—injuries, Mother Nature, racing luck, all those things. It would have been nice to have set the record. But seeing Cigar's name up there alongside Citation—well, there's nothing wrong with that. He's still Cigar as far as I'm concerned."
For Mandella, there was at least some retribution.
"The winning streak has been good for everybody," Mandella said. "And Mott is unshakable. He's smart. He's a good sport, and a fierce, fierce competitor.
"After Dubai, this feels pretty good," he added. "I don't think I'll ever get over that race. But this sure helps."
Asked recently what he most vividly recalls about the aftermath of the '96 Classic, Mandella said, "I remember we had a pretty good time at the Pacifica restaurant that night. We smoked a few cigars."
Dare and Go ran twice more without winning. His stallion career ended in November 2001 with his death in Australia during surgery for colic. The son of Alydar sired six stakes winners.
Cigar roared back from the Classic to win the Woodward Stakes (G1) at Belmont Park, then suffered narrow losses in the Jockey Club Gold Cup (G1), also at Belmont, and the Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) at Woodbine. Retired to stud with fanfare, he proved to be sterile. He lived to age 24 at the Kentucky Horse Park, near Lexington.
In the meantime, Mott and Mandella are still at it, squaring off in major events such as the Classic. If Subsanador is the same horse that won the 2024 California Crown Stakes (G1), he could be tough, although he has lost three straight on the comeback trail.
"He had a front shoe come loose in his last race, just hanging by a nail," Mandella said, referring to the Hollywood Gold Cup (G2) in May. "He would have been better off if he'd just lost the shoe. Since then, he's been training as good as he ever has. I've got to think he'll run pretty good."
As for Knightsbridge, Mott is curious to see how the 5-year-old son of Nyquist will react after running a spectacular 122 Beyer Speed Figure in winning the 1 1/8-mile Monmouth Cup Stakes (G3) by 10 1/4 lengths in his most recent start. Is the trainer worried about a proverbial "bounce" in form after such a huge effort?
"It's been five weeks, so you hope that's enough time to prevent that," he said. "I mean, we used to run horses back in three weeks, and we thought that was a good amount of time."
During his streak, Cigar ran back in three weeks or less on five occasions. The caller wondered if the great horse ever bounced. Mott laughed.
"Well," he said, "if he did, he still won."
