The $500,000, Grade 2 Cigar Mile Handicap Saturday at Aqueduct offers one final opportunity for accomplished and aspiring stakes horses to compete in a marquee dirt mile race before the calendar turns to 2026. Held around one turn, the Cigar Mile has long been an important race in the dirt mile division since its inaugural running in 1988 when Forty Niner won what was then called the NYRA Mile Handicap.
If there’s one thing that’s even more certain than a 1-20 shot at a racetrack, it’s the inevitability of death.
It comes to all of mankind, and animals as well.
Yet it remains immensely difficult to accept, especially when it comes far too early in someone’s life, such as it did for one of the greatest 2-year-old fillies of the 20th century.
Landaluce seemed invincible on the racetrack.
She won her five starts in dominant fashion, by a combined margin of 46 ½ lengths, including her first graded stakes victory, in which she romped home by 21 lengths.
Uprooting one’s life and moving to a different country is never an easy task, but it’s even tougher when you’re a 19-year-old in a highly competitive sport. Yet, the challenge and pursuit of greatness made such a move a necessity for Brazilian jockey Dylan Machado.
The final few weeks of 2025 are a busy time on the Road to the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve. Seven qualifiers are taking place in two countries between Nov. 29 and Dec. 20.
