By: Blood Horse

Photo Credit: Coglianese Photos / Chelsea Durand

https://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/245100/true-timber-could-target-pegasus-saudi-cup

Cigars and timber are not usually a good pairing. But Calumet Farm’s True Timber proved his talent at the highest level with a 5 1/2-length win over Snapper Sinclair in the Dec. 5 Cigar Mile Handicap (G1) at Aqueduct Racetrack.

Trainer Jack Sisterson said True Timber will fly to Keeneland Dec. 7 and could start preparations for another challenging race, with the Jan. 23 Pegasus World Cup Invitational Stakes (G1) a possibility, along with the $20 million Saudi Cup Feb. 20 at King Abdulaziz Racetrack in Riyadh.

“He’s going on 7, and I don’t want to take away what he loves to do, which is train and run,” Sisterson said. “He’s not slowing down any. You need to capitalize. We’ll look to bring him down to Palm Meadows in Florida and look at the Pegasus race form. We’ve also been invited to the Saudi Cup. We’ll look at options like that and stretch him out. It’ll be the first time around two turns for us, so we’ll train him a little differently and see if he takes to that, and we’ll go from there.”

True Timber registered his first win since September 2018. The son of Mineshaft  capped his 6-year-old year by capturing a race in which he’s come close in the past, having run second, three-quarters of a length behind Patternrecognition, in 2018 and third in 2019 to winner Maximum Security .

“For True Timber, what impressed me the most was proving to people that he could win a big race and do it impressively,” Sisterson said. “He showed us in the morning that he has such a will to compete at a level like that. But from the outside looking in, the general public may have questioned his talent. He put forth his best effort, which we knew he had, yesterday.”

True Timber gave both his rider and conditioner an early Christmas gift. Jockey Kendrick Carmouche, who has been riding professionally since 2000, earned his first grade 1 victory on the Kentucky-bred.

It also marked the second grade 1 score for Sisterson, who took over True Timber’s training duties this summer when Kiaran McLaughlin retired to become a jockey agent. Sisterson, who started on his own as a trainer in 2018, won the Personal Ensign Stakes (G1) with Vexatious this summer at Saratoga Race Course.

“It means a lot for me for my staff, who does all the hard work, and to have someone like Kendrick say he’d ride them back, it gave us a lot of confidence and means a lot,” Sisterson said. “To be able to team up and win a race like that, it’s been a long time coming but a well-deserved victory for Kendrick, who is a talented jockey and deserves a win like that. I didn’t give him any instructions. He just told me, ‘I got you, brother’ before the race in a text. We are just fortunate enough to add one victory to what is hopefully a riding title for him.

Sisterson’s other Cigar Mile entrant, Bon Raison, finished last of six but came out of the effort in good order. The 5-year-old son of Raison d’Etat  entered off a 10th-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint (G1) at Keeneland and will now receive a freshening after running nine times in 2020.

“We took a shot. He’s a homebred and a beautiful horse who has talent, and I think as a plan for him moving forward, he’ll get a well-deserved break,” Sisterson said. “We think he has a few nice wins in him. Maybe not at that sort of caliber, but if we pick and choose our spots, we can bring him back in the springtime and have some fun with him next year.”