Future bright for Lecomte-bound Midnight Bourbon

Trainer Steve Asmussen hasn’t won a Lecomte Stakes since 2008, when Z Fortune prevailed, and he might not win the 2021 renewal Saturday, but Asmussen’s entrant, Midnight Bourbon, long has been aimed toward the race and should improve this year upon an encouraging 2020 campaign.

Midnight Bourbon scored a second-start Ellis Park one-mile maiden win before finishing second in the Grade 3 Iroquois, where Sittin on Go beat him 2 1/2 lengths, and third in the Grade 1 Champagne, won in a romp by Midnight Bourbon’s stablemate, Jackie’s Warrior.

The Champagne came Oct. 10 at Belmont and six weeks later Midnight Bourbon posted the first of seven Fair Grounds works preparing for the Lecomte.

“He’s a beautiful, big horse who I think will be a better 3-year-old,” Asmussen said. “Looking at him physically, I thought getting him down to Fair Grounds, with the spacing of the races there, the distance of that series, it should suit him extremely well.”

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The 1 1/16-mile Lecomte, which marks Midnight Bourbon’s two-turn debut, leads to the 1 1/8-mile Risen Star and the 1 3/16-mile Louisiana Derby. Midnight Bourbon, owned by Winchell Thoroughbreds, is by Tiznow out of the Malibu Moon mare Catch the Moon, a real broodmare star. Her three foals to race are Cocked and Loaded, who won the Grade 3 Iroquois; Girvin, who won the Grade 2 Risen Star, the Grade 2 Louisiana Derby, and the Grade 1 Haskell; and Pirate’s Punch, who won the Grade 3 Salvator Mile last summer.

Ricardo Santana Jr. rides Midnight Bourbon, who breaks from the rail. The Lecomte drew 11 entrants but not all will start. Trainer Norm Casse said Beep Beep would be scratched in favor of a Saturday allowance race. Manor House, too, could opt for that allowance, while Dyn O Mite is uncertain to run. Mandaloun is the likely Lecomte favorite.

Asmussen on Saturday also has stakes starters in the Duncan Kenner, where he runs Archidust, and the Louisiana, with Silver Prospector and Sonneman. Silver Prospector’s main winter goal is the Razorback next month at Oaklawn, while Asmussen hopes Sonneman could develop into a horse for the New Orleans Classic in March.

Sonneman came to hand nicely late last summer, finishing second in the Grade 2 Pat Day Mile on Sept. 5. In November he scored an impressive second-level allowance win at Churchill and in December was a rallying second behind Grade 1-winner Maxfield in the Tenacious Stakes.

“Physically, he’s a little like Midnight Bourbon, and we like staying in a rhythm with him through the series” at Fair Grounds, Asmussen said.

Santana rode both horses in their most recent start and ends up on Silver Prospector on Saturday because that horse is bound for Santana’s base at Oaklawn Park. James Graham rides Sonneman.