GOLDEN GLIMPSES #38

LIGHTS OUT FOR CIGAR, BUT HE'LL FOREVER SHINE BRIGHTLY

At 3:45 p.m. on Saturday, a massive power outage hit the West.

Five minutes earlier at Del Mar, the lights went out for Cigar.

The horse whose 16-racing winning streak captured the fancy of even the most casual racing fan went too fast too soon in the 1 1/4-mile Pacific Classic and lost his status as an international hero in less than two minutes -- 1:59 4/5, to be exact.

Almost everyone was disappointed, even the jockey who rode Dare and Go to a 3 1/2-length victory at an $81.20 win payoff.

"All week long I'd been thinking I'm going to try my best to beat Cigar," said 32-year-old Alex Solis, a thoughtful, caring and sensitive family man who called the unlikely triumph the greatest of his 15-year career. "But if I can't beat him, I hope he wins and I hope he wins big. But I was aiming to try and beat him.

"After I passed the finish line and I was pulling up, I was so happy for myself and the horse and the trainer, but at the same time, I felt sad a little bit to see Cigar get beat. He had been such a hero to just about all of us. He had done so much for racing."

And so it came to pass that Dare and Go became a trivia answer, an asterisk in history, Cigar's Onion, his Dark Star, his Jim Dandy, his Upset.

But this was not a sad day for racing. It was magnificent in that it put Cigar's accomplishments in perspective for all who care a whit about racing as it was and could be again.

The focus should be on Cigar at Oaklawn Park, at Hollywood Park, at Gulfstream Park and at Dubai.

It should be on fans sitting on the roof of a truck beyond the backstretch at Del Mar, to get a glimpse of history.

It should be of people lined 10-deep around the walking ring to see a legend whose achievement may never be equaled again.

It should be on Jerry Bailey second-guessing himself, and not the horse, for gunning Cigar early, prompting fractions of 1:09 1/5 and 1:33 3/5, just a few ticks off the world record for a mile.

"I made a decision to let him hold his ground and not to ease him back," Bailey said. "Possibly, that took its toll on him, because once I make that decision, he's got to hold his ground all the way. Every time the outside horse puts pressure on him to run, he has to run a little bit faster . . . If the blame comes my way, I'll take it, because I'm the one who made the decision to let him stay up there. I didn't think it was a killer pace, although it was fairly quick. But I knew leaving the three-eighths pole if anyone was going to run hard at me, I was going to be in trouble today.

"I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel disappointed, but I'm not disappointed in the horse. Cigar owes me nothing. I don't think he owes racing anything. I think he was pretty valiant in defeat and I guess I knew in the bottom of my heart it might come to an end sometime. I was hoping it wouldn't, but that's always a possibility in this game. You've got to run around the track. They don't just give it to you, and I think he's shown what an exceptional feat16 in a row is . . . He has overcome everything before, and maybe I expected too much of him."

It should be Bill Mott not making any excuses for the defeat, except for the fast fractions. "I'm as responsible as anybody for the way the race played out. You can't go a mile in 1:33 and change and still be there at the end of a mile-and-a-quarter . . . I'm disappointed in myself that we didn't plan the race out a little differently, but I'm still very proud of Cigar, Jerry Bailey and the entire team.

"I think the media and everybody has treated us fairly. I think Cigar has created some new fans for horse racing. Hopefully some of those people will come back and learn to enjoy it and hopefully there's been some sort of contribution."

It should be of the genuine class and mutual respect displayed by the major players in a fairy tale scenario -- Mott and Bailey of Team Paulson, and Dick Mandella and Alex Solis of Dare and Go, who, other than throw-out Luthier Fever, was given the least chance of the four other runners to win.

It should be of David Flores on Siphon carrying Bailey wide on the first turn, and Corey Nakatani on Dramatic Gold trying to keep Bailey boxed in. That's race-riding, and as ESPN analyst Gary Stevens so graphically pointed out, Bailey, riding a 1-10 shot, was "a marked target. He had a bounty on his head."

It should be of Mott shaking Mandella's hand before sitting at the dais to patiently, directly and candidly field questions from the media at a post-race press conference.

It should be evidence that the game is on the up-and-up, and even a horse as great as Cigar will be kept honest if the pace is unrealistic.

It should be of Mott responding to all comers through a marvelous two-year ride on which everyone with a camera and a pen wanted a piece of him.

It should be a lesson in appreciation of everything that is wonderful about horse racing, and that nothing should ever, ever be taken for granted.

Trevor Denman, the world's greatest race-caller and a keen student of the game, put it best: "A horse is not a machine."

But for 16 races, Cigar was.

And that's what we should remember.