Cigar Arlington Citation Challenge 1996 News Segments

[DanielSong39]

By this point Cigar was battling a chronic sore hoof and quarter cracks, and endured a grueling overseas trip.

Still had enough to defeat a quality field going wide on both turns... what else is there to say?

[JoeyFudd]

Remember that Secretariat lost races; he wasn't a dependable winner like Cigar.

[bg147]

Nobody, and I mean nobody wins at a 1 1/8 miles at Arlington going that wide in both turns

[kellyvision]

I was there that day and without a doubt, he was one of the two or three greatest of all time. I've been to a lot of sporting events that were pretty big and only seeing Michael Schumacher race in F1 came close to seeing this magnificent athlete.

[superemperador1]

Honour and glory...was not the best at this distance at all!!...Unbridled Song was always injured and overrrated. Only Dramatic Gold was ready to take him on and he really tried. He was one of the major reasons Cigar lost the Pacific classic! hehe.

[jhordanian]

This was a fairly solid field. Honour and Glory, as a 3 year old, won the Met Mile less than 2 months before, Unbridled;s Song was the 95' Breeders Cup Juvenile winner and Kentucky Derby favorite after romps in the Florida Derby and Wood, and Dramatic Gold went on to win the grade 1 Meadowlands Cup later in the year. And Cigar had to carry 130 lbs giving 12 pounds to runner-up Dramatic Gold.

[DanielSong39]

While this was a special invitational race that was ungraded, the quality of the field is what you would see in a Grade I.

Also note that of Cigar's 16 consecutive wins, 10 were Grade I races while the Dubai World Cup and Arlington Citation Challenge had Grade I-quality fields (and purses). The other four were two allowance races early in the streak and two Massachusetts Handicaps (Grade II).

[saveus228]

Dramatic Gold won 0 grade Is didn't he? Honor and Glory won 0 route grade Is didn't he?

[lengua92]

cigar is an unstoppable dynamo!

[bsd987]

"It's now Citation and Cigar." I love the lack of love to Mister Frisky, who won 16 in a row from 1989 until the Kentucky Derby in 1990.

[Dingerz]

Oops, you're right! I had 1995 on the brain since I had just put on the JCGC and BCC of that year. I'll change it, thanks!

[dpaslaski]

you have the header wrong, this race was in 1996. I remember because I was there.