Cigar Stamped Out

For Richard Mandella, one of the trainers preparing horses to face Cigar in the Hollywood Gold Cup, a single announcement from New York brought good news and bad news. Cigar is out of the $1 million race on June 30.

“As a trainer, doing my job to win a race, I’d prefer he wasn’t there,” said Mandella, whose Hollywood Park-based horse, Soul of the Matter, becomes the Gold Cup favorite.

Then, speaking for the local racing community, Mandella added: “As a fan, which we all are, hoping to see him again, I’m disappointed he’s not coming.”

Hollywood Park hoped to draw 50,000 fans to the track for a Gold Cup with Cigar and had promoted for weeks the scheduled visit of the 1995 horse of the year, a winner of 15 straight races.

But Cigar came out of his June 1 Massachusetts Handicap romp with a bruised right forefoot, and as of Tuesday morning, he hadn’t resumed training.