Five millionaires. Four top-level winners. Three from last
month’s Breeders’ Cup. Two is the grade. And one turn at old Aqueduct.

The foot and meter need work, but Saturday’s $500,000 Cigar Mile is worth singing about, even if I owe an apology to Frederic Austin for that
haphazard attempt at “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”

As I listened to racing secretary Rob McLennan was taking the
entries Sunday, I could not help but realize this was going to be a hell of a
race. And that was midway through the draw.

Señor Buscador checks all the boxes having coming out of the
Breeders’ Cup Classic, having a Grade 1 win in the Saudi Cup and, thanks mostly
to that, having a pile of money that puts him over a million bucks nearly 12
times over.

Mullikin and Post Time also came from the championships at
Del Mar. Mullikin, Book’em Danno and Locked have Grade 1 victories. Post Time,
Book’em Danno, Coastal Mission and Law Professor have earned at least $1
million each. If Repo Rocks can crash the superfecta, he also would get a
seventh digit on his payroll.

And somehow, the Cigar Mile is just a Grade 2. Maybe the
best Grade 2 in recent memory. Memo to the American Graded Stakes Committee: Get
this race back to being a Grade 1 where it belongs.

“Maybe I’m biased, because I’m a New York guy, and this is
the circuit I cover,” New York Racing Association TV personality and former
jockey Richard Migliore said on my podcast this week. “New York racing seems to
get downgraded a little quicker than most jurisdictions and a tendency not to
re-establish those graded placings as quickly as some other jurisdictions.”

Another memo to the committee: Ask yourself why some cheaper,
leaner races in what is left of California racing still are Grade 1s.

The Cigar Mile and the Woodward both got whacked two years
ago this month. Ruefully, that sounds about right for the Woodward, which has
bounced around all three NYRA tracks and has started fields in recent years of
four, eight, four, six and five. Those numbers look better as a ZIP code in
Eastern Michigan than they do on the name of a once-great race.

Saturday will mark the 36th running of the Cigar Mile. It
began as the NYRA Mile before it was decided to name the race for its 1994 winner
whose Hall of Fame plaque was being etched while he was in the middle of a historic
winning streak. All that needed to be filled in was the 16. That seven-length
runaway during Thanksgiving weekend 30 years ago was the second during that
iconic run.

That was the first year the race was moved to the long
holiday weekend. It stayed there until 2016 before it was pushed into December.
I vividly remember having NYRA’s Andy Serling on my podcast in 2017 and
declaring that it was a mistake to move the Cigar Mile card away from Thanksgiving.
He told me I could not have been more wrong. He could not have been more right.

This autumn feature has more than held its own in contributing
to New York’s racing legacy. Running for the great Woody Stephens, Forty Niner
made the inaugural NYRA Mile in 1988 his last victory before becoming a
successful stallion. Once the race was moved to November, the list of winners
who followed Cigar included Congaree twice, Kodiak Kowboy and Tonalist. Discreet
Cat is on that list, too, with a stakes-record time of 1:32.46 that still
stands 18 years later.

Once the Cigar Mile found its current spot on the December
calendar, star-crossed and double-crossed Maximum Security went gate to wire to
winner’s circle in 2019.

The race came up soft when True Timber cruised in 2020, but we
all deserved the mulligan we got that year. Something about a pandemic. The
2021 renewal featuring Americanrevolution and the sloppy 2022 edition won by
Mind Control admittedly were so-so. It was barely a week later when the
graded-stakes graders played the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately game and
demoted the race for its first and only time.

If turnabout is fair play, then the 11 members of the
committee working under the aegis of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders
Association should put the Cigar Mile back in its rightful place as a Grade 1.
But that is business for another day coming soon in Lexington, Ky.

For now we get to enjoy a terrific day of racing Saturday. As
a Kentucky Derby prep at the entry level, the Remsen (G2) has been punching
above its weight lately. Dornoch and Sierra Leone finished one-two a nose apart
last year. Mo Donegal and Zandon did exactly that three years ago. And the
Demoiselle (G2) for 2-year-old fillies just might be like a Broadway debut for
Muhimma, who is 2-for-2 with wins by 7 1/2 and 5 1/2 lengths.

Those will be the undercard fights before the main event
Saturday, one that brings together not only a stout field but also all the
crossroads that come with eight furlongs and one turn.

“I love the top one-mile races,” Migliore said. “It brings
sprinters stretching out. Horses that have been running two turns and routing
are turning back. To me it’s where the best of both worlds collide.”

Mullikin, the morning-line favorite, will be racing past
seven furlongs for the first time. Book’em Danno will be trying that for the
second time. Señor Buscador cuts back from the 1 1/4 miles of the Breeders’ Cup
Classic to try and improve on his second-place finish in last year’s Cigar
Mile. Post Time, has raced four of his last five going a mile, including a
runner-up finish in the Breeders’ Cup. Lightly raced Locked has won as a
sprinter, a router and a miler.

If not for the 39-degree sunshine forecast for Saturday, the
Cigar Mile would have a completely feeling. Crank up the temperature about 40
degrees and turn the calendar back about six months, and this really would have
Grade 1 franking.

“It’s kind of the winter version of the Met Mile,” Mullikin’s
trainer Rodolphe Brisset told me Thursday. “For my horse and myself, it’s
something I have to try if the horse is doing good, because it can open some
options.”

Call this a stocking stuffer. The 2024 Cigar Mile would be
worth watching any time of year. That it comes in the bright, raw setting of
late autumn in New York reminds us that Aqueduct does not have all that many
big days left. Two, maybe three more winters tops before the new Belmont Park becomes
the 10-month getaway from Saratoga.

Once it is opened and enjoyed, here is hoping that this
weekend gift will get a top-level thank you from a certain committee in
Kentucky.

Ron Flatter’s column appears Friday mornings at Horse
Racing Nation. Comments below and at RonFlatterRacingPod@gmail.com
are welcomed, encouraged and may be used in the feedback segment of the Ron Flatter Racing Pod, which also is posted every Friday.