Hoist the Gold likely will be pointed to Saudi Cup

Hoist the Gold, winner of Saturday's Grade 2 Cigar Mile, will have a couple of weeks off at a farm in Kentucky before returning to training. Then he is likely to take a trip to the $20 million Saudi Cup (G1) in February at King Abdulaziz Racecourse, said Jim Culver, president of owner Dream Team One Racing Stable.

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The Kentucky homebred earned a career-best 109 Beyer Speed Figure for his front-running win in the Cigar Mile.

Trained by Dallas Stewart and piloted by Hall of Famer John Velazquez, the 4-year-old Mineshaft colt zipped through splits of 22.41, 44.88 and 1:09.04 en route to a 4 1/2-length score over the late-running Señor Buscador in a final time of 1:34.28.

Culver previously operated Dream Team One as a syndicate but went private following the pandemic. Culver was unable to attend Saturday’s race in person after hurting his back earlier in the week, but he said the impressive performance got him up on his feet.

“I was jumping up and down in my living room like crazy watching it,” Culver said. “It was pretty exciting.”

It was Velazquez, who won the Cigar Mile for the fourth time, who picked out the race after Hoist the Gold finished a disappointing sixth in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint, an effort that came on the heels of sharp score out of the inside post in the six-furlong Phoenix (G2) in October at Keeneland.

“We finally figured out what he likes to do. He does not like to take dirt in his face. He shies away from it, and it just kills him in a race,” Culver said. “He got him out front quick in the Phoenix and he won, but in the Breeders’ Cup he got stuck on the rail behind the leaders and he just took too much dirt that day.

“Johnny said, ‘he gallops out tremendously, so let’s go a little longer and he’ll win this race for fun,’ ” added Culver. “Johnny picked the race for us and he was right. I was a little surprised when he got that five-length lead at the top of the stretch. Wow. It was just a tremendous performance.”

Culver is best known as the original owner of multiple Grade 1-winning multimillionaire Mucho Macho Man, whom he campaigned with Reeves Thoroughbred Racing through much of a tremendous career that included a third-place finish in the 2011 Kentucky Derby. Dean Reeves bought the horse outright in 2012, and Mucho Macho Man went on to win the 2013 Breeders’ Cup Classic as the highpoint of five career graded scores.

“I bought him as a yearling off the farm and raced him and then Dean bought a majority interest. We stayed in partnership with them for a long time and then sold out the rest of him later in his career to Dean, who ended up owning all of him,” Culver said.

Culver purchased Hoist the Gold’s dam, Tacit Approval, for $62,000 at the 2015 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky February Mixed Sale.

“She was owned by West Point, and they decided to put her in the sale,” Culver said. “A couple of the West Point partners approached me about buying her with the hopes of racing her again.”

Although Tacit Approval didn’t show enough in training to move forward with their dreams of racing her, the Tapit mare has performed beyond expectations as a broodmare, producing three foals to race thus far, all winners, including Hoist the Gold and Mucho Macho Girl, by Mucho Macho Man, who was entered to race Sunday at Fair Grounds.

“We decided to breed her, and about every three years we skip a year of breeding her just to give her a break. She’s done well for us,” Culver said.

Culver said he was a big fan of Hoist the Gold’s sire Mineshaft. The son of A. P. Indy earned honors as horse of the year and champion older horse in 2003 for a seven-win campaign that included Grade 1 wins at Belmont Park in the Suburban Handicap, Woodward and Jockey Club Gold Cup.

“I loved Mineshaft when he raced,” Culver said. “He didn’t even nick well with the mare, but I dismiss that type of analysis when there’s a small percentage of horses that are used to evaluate.”

Hoist the Gold RNA’d at the 2020 Keeneland September yearling sale in what has proven to be a fortunate turn of affairs for Culver as the 4-year-old dark bay has now banked more than $1.1 million with a record of 26: 5-6-3.

“We didn’t plan to keep him,” Culver said. “We were going to breed and race every other year’s horse, and he was on the list to sell. We put him in the sale but he didn’t bring what we’d hoped. We put him in training, and I guess we made the right decision.”