Mendelssohn, Chad Brown Runners Head Cigar Mile

With defending champion Mind Your Biscuits retired, the December 1^st Cigar Mile at Aqueduct Racetrack becomes a wide-open affair led by Mendelssohn, the globe-trotting three-year-old seeking his first grade 1 victory since the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf last year.

Since that win, Mendelssohn has traveled from his Irish base to Dubai, where he won the UAE Derby, and then to the United States five times, always returning to Ireland in the interim. The Cigar Mile will be his sixth trip stateside in 2018 alone.

Royally-bred Mendelssohn, a half-brother to Beholder and Into Mischief by Justify’s sire Scat Daddy, was most recently seen finishing fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1) at Churchill Downs, after previously running last in the Kentucky Derby there in May. In his previous trips to New York, he was second in the Runhappy Travers Stakes (G1) and third in both the Jockey Club Gold Cup (G1) and the Dwyer Stakes (G3).

Challenging Mendelssohn will be the Chad Brown duo of Patternrecognition and Timeline. Patternrecognition is coming in off two straight wins, an allowance at Saratoga followed by the Kelso Handicap (G2) at Belmont in September. The son of Adios Charlie is two for four this year, and is unbeaten at Aqueduct. The $420,000 OBS April purchase is closing in on that amount with $379,200 in earnings to date.

Timeline finished third to his stablemate in the Kelso, beaten 1 ½ lengths, but both of them outran 2017 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile winner Battle of Midway in that effort. He has since come back to win the Seabiscuit Handicap (G3) at Del Mar last week to flatter them. Timeline was a two-time stakes winner last year; he received six months off following the Pennsylvania Derby last season, and has rebounded to be no worse than fourth in five 2018 starts. The son of Hard Spun, who will not have the services of regular pilot Javier Castellano in the saddle; he has committed to Copper Town.

Copper Town will be well backed in the Cigar Mile, as he is coming off three straight victories for trainer Todd Pletcher. The son of Speightstown broke his maiden at Belmont Park in September, then won an allowance race there before heading to the sidelines for one year and one week. He returned from the layoff to dominate an allowance race at Keeneland by five lengths.

The Cigar Mile will be run as the 9^th race on a 10-race program, complete with four graded stakes races, with post time scheduled for 3:45pm Eastern. Catch the action live on TVG.

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