Midnight Lute

As racing across the nation heats up with spring nearly upon us, we take a look at trends and notable items from the country's graded races in February.  February featured 20 graded races from coast to coast. Five tracks hosted graded events during the month: Fair Grounds (4), Gulfstream Park (3), Oaklawn Park (4), Santa Anita Park (7), and Tampa Bay Downs (2). Four were Grade II events, while 16 were Grade III. Six were contested on turf, with 14 on dirt. Eight of the graded contests were for sophomores,...

If this seems a strangely specific category, that's because it is. There are two dozen sires standing in Kentucky at $10,000, a fee that attempts to preserve their dignity against a candid slide into the bargain basement. Though you're only a cent away from offering your stallion at four figures, you want him to look accessible without being low-rent. Only a couple are newcomers, all of which were dealt with separately in opening this series. Otherwise this is chiefly the bracket of youngish stallions whose rookie vogue is spent, anxious...

With the scratch of 8-5 favorite Supa Speed (Justify) at the gate, it was a 10-1 longshot who took advantage of the delay as Will Then (f, 2, War of Will--Remember Then, by Pulpit) exploded down the middle of the course to take the GIII Jimmy Durante Stakes at Del Mar. Will Then was last seen Oct. 26 breaking her maiden up north at Woodbine on their turf course but before that did not find the Kentucky Downs course to her liking, finishing 10th on debut Aug. 31. In no...

Some of the most highly anticipated races during the summer racing season are the 'baby' races during the boutique meetings, which attract its fair share of high-priced offspring from a variety of top national outfits. Summer Breezes highlights debuting and stakes-entered 2-year-olds at those meetings that have been sourced at the breeze-up sales earlier in the year, with links to their under-tack previews. Here are the horses entered for Friday's program at Del Mar: Friday, September 6, 2024 Del Mar 3, $75k, 2yo, f, 1mT, 7:00 p.m. ET Horse (Sire),...

Weather conditions continued to improve on the penultimate day of the 2024 Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's Spring Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training under-tack show and, while works failed to reach the peak set earlier in the week, the headwind that hampered Friday's show let up in time for a plethora of runners to hit the :9 4/5 mark Saturday. A total of 11 juveniles matched that mark with five of those 11 coming from sires who have their first 2-year-olds this year. Craig Wheeler sent out his homebred son of...

Midnight Lute gave a masterclass in devastating closing speed in his back-to-back Breeders' Cup Sprint wins, with his 4 3/4-length score in 2007 an eye-popping performance visually and his 1:07.08 time in 2008 still holding the Sprint record. Veteran yearling-to-juvenile reseller Eddie Woods broke the champion, who was a $290,000 RNA at OBS March in 2005 as a 2-year-old. "He was a wonderfully big, good-looking black horse," said Woods. "Tom McGreevy bought him to pinhook him to OBS. It's shameful to say for a champion sprinter, but he didn't work...

Hill 'n' Dale Farms multiple leading sire Curlin will have a stud fee equal to Spendthrift Farm's Into Mischief at $250,000 LFSN, as the breeding operation published its roster for the 2024 season in a press release Thursday morning. Farm stalwart Curlin, who has defined himself as one of the most preeminent sires at stud today, had his fee raised from $225,000. The 19-year-old is the sire of five individual Grade I winners this year, including Idiomatic, Cody's Wish, Clairiere, Elite Power and Bright Future. Curlin's champion son Good Magic...

Talk about keeping good company. Kirstenbosch (Midnight Lute), a 4-year-old making her 17th lifetime start for trainer John Sadler, has not raced out of graded-stakes company since her third-place finish in the GI La Brea S. Dec. 26. Perhaps more impressively, she's been on the board in all but three of the eight starts since that post-Christmas trifecta. And though absent of the winner's circle since victory in the GIII La Canada S. Jan. 15, Kirstenbosch has run second or third to GISW Adare Manor (Uncle Mo) and a pair...

It tells you plenty about the business today that this final leg of our quest for value on Kentucky farms should compress together stallions whose various retirements from the racetrack spanned more than decade. In devoting nearly all the previous instalments to individual classes of younger stallions, we've simply mirrored the distribution of mares, which as we all know is massively loaded towards largely unproven sires. To me, then, those few survivors that do establish a viable niche in the Bluegrass are real heroes. While dozens of their original competitors...

Hill 'n' Dale Farms announced its 2023 stallion roster and fees, with Horse of the Year and leading sire Curlin (Smart Strike) heading the group at $225,000. The operation's leading stallion stood for $175,000 in 2022. Ghostzapper (Awesome Again) remains unchanged at $75,000. Rounding out the farm's roster are Army Mule - $12,500; Charlatan - $50,000; Kantharos - $20,000, Lost Treasure - $3,500; Maclean's Music - $50,000; Midnight Lute - $12,500; Mucho Macho Man - $7,500; Violence - $40,000; and World of Trouble - $5,000. Champion Juvenile Good Magic (Curlin)...

With so much background noise over the tragic Medina Spirit (Protonico), few have given due attention to another poignant context for the potential elevation of Mandaloun (Into Mischief) as official winner of the 2021 GI Kentucky Derby. If the next name on the roll of honor happens to be Call Me Midnight (Midnight Lute), however, then perhaps more of us will renew our gratitude to the late Prince Khalid Abdullah for a legacy well measured by the performance of both horses at Fair Grounds last Saturday. The founder of Juddmonte...

9th-Fair Grounds, $58,000, Msw, 1-22, 3yo, 6f, 1:11.65, ft, 2 3/4 lengths. FEROCIOUSLY (c, 3, Violence--Brinkley {SP}, by City Zip), sent off the 5-2 choice while facing a pair of seven-figure purchases, settled in a close-up second behind 9-1 chance Vintage Vinyl (Maclean's Music), who led through :22.15. Meanwhile, $1.5-million Fasig-Tipton grad Vincoe (Quality Road), sent off at 7-2, tried to make a grab for the lead along the inside but had the door slammed in his face, and soon found himself in last, about six lengths off the front....