CIGAR GETS A SHOT AT MORE RICHES.

Byline: Kevin Modesti

They called a news conference at Santa Anita on Thursday to announce that Cigar will be starring in a new series. It's scheduled to last 13 weeks.

But this series won't be a sitcom or a medical drama. It won't feature Woody Harrelson as trainer Bill Mott or Jason Alexander as a neurotic groom. In fact it's not a TV series.

Which might come as a surprise to most of the thoroughbred racing world, which sees no limit to Cigar's star potential. He's not just the Horse of the Year, he's the sport's 800-pound gorilla, its George Clooney.

The executives who announced a $2-million bonus offer linking the March 2 Santa Anita Handicap, June 30 Hollywood Gold Cup and Aug. 10 Pacific Classic (at Del Mar) made it clear the plan didn't start with a desire to lure Cigar to California. The idea first came up in Thoroughbred Owners of California board meetings in June. Cigar didn't become a coast-to-coast phenomenon until later in the summer.

Still, the best thing about the so-called MGM Grand Classic Crown in 1996 probably will be Cigar's participation.

At least, that's the idea you get when a news conference ends with five men at a dais pulling big fat stogies out of their jacket pockets and lighting up.

If Cigar makes the trip west, he will be chasing the $2 million promised to any horse who can sweep California's three major races for 3-year-olds and up, each of which has a $1 million purse in its own right. If Cigar, or any horse, wins all three, he will earn a total of $3.8 million.

And owner Allen Paulson confirmed that with the bonus plan in place after months of negotiations, he does plan to send Cigar here.

"We are still planning on starting him back in the Donn (Handicap at Gulfstream Park on Feb. 10)," Paulson said. "If he comes out of that race well, we'll send him to Santa Anita."

Without the bonus, Paulson and Mott would have kept Cigar in Florida for the March 2 Gulfstream Park Handicap, making for a shorter trip to the Dubai World Cup on March 27.

If Cigar becomes the sixth horse to win the Big 'Cap and the Hollywood Gold Cup in the same year, he will go into the Pacific Classic with a chance to earn $2.6 million: the $600,000 winner's purse plus the bonus. He could match the single-race record set in the 1985 Jersey Derby by Spend a Buck, who collected $600,000 for the victory plus a $2 million bonus for sweeping a "series" that started with the Cherry Hill Mile, Garden State Stakes and Kentucky Derby.

On the other hand, if Cigar wins the first two legs, Del Mar might not find many challengers for the Pacific Classic. And that could threaten the bonus.

The fine print of the series says the $2 million won't be paid unless at least six horses start every race.

That clause won't apply to the secondary bonuses - $250,000, $125,000, $75,000 and $50,000 to the top four point-earners, on a 10-7-5-3-1 basis, among horses running in all three races. But the six-horse requirement could get in the way of the jockeys' bonus - $50,000 to each of two racetrack charities if any rider sweeps the series on a single horse.

The bonus was dreamed up by TOC president Ed Friendly, the former "Laugh In" producer.

"We truly believe California is the premier racing state in the United States," Friendly said. "When you think about it, we're the only state that can have (good) racing all through the year. It's too hot in Florida during the summer. It's too cold in Kentucky and New York during the winter.

"What we needed was something to point out that California has the best racing. It really deserves its own Triple Crown."

At first Friendly thought it could be unveiled at last summer's Pacific Classic. Of course nothing in racing is that easy. This is the sport whose last series for older horses, the American Championship Racing Series, folded in 1993 after the interests of individual tracks outweighed the common good.

The hardest part of the new series proved to be finding somebody to insure the MGM Grand against having to pay off. MGM Grand race and sport president Gene Kivi said the insurance company that was settled on didn't want to be identified. He wouldn't reveal how much the policy cost either.

The deal with the MGM Grand lasts five years. A television package could be in place by 1997.

By then Cigar will have moved on to a movie career.