King's Plate pedigree profile: Midnight Mascot
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Midnight Mascot
Colt by Army Mule – Midnight Embrace, by Midnight Lute
Bred in Ontario by Yvonne Schwabe Thoroughbreds ($200,000 Keeneland September yearling purchase by Manfred and Penny Conrad)
Among this year’s King’s Plate hopefuls, Woodstock Stakes winner Midnight Mascot sports the distinction of counting a recent winner of the Canadian classic as a very close relative.
Unraced Midnight Embrace, by Midnight Lute and out of the Mt. Magazine mare Shebandowana, is a full sister to Midnight Aria, upset winner by a half-length over favored Up With the Birds in the 2013 Queen’s Plate. Midnight Aria placed in four other stakes races, including multiple Grade 2 events.
Midnight Embrace, who also is a half-sister to Grade 3 winner Wanna Runner and to stakes-placed How Far Is Heaven, is off to a solid start as a broodmare, with four winners from as many starters, including Army Cadet, a full sibling to her King’s Plate hopeful who is her first stakes horse. While Midnight Mascot has not yet won beyond 6 1/2 furlongs – he did finish third in the Grade 3 Marine Stakes at 1 1/16 miles – all three of Midnight Embrace’s other runners have won at a mile or longer, boding well for his classics campaign.
Army Mule, a grandson of A.P. Indy, won all three of his starts in an abbreviated racing career, highlighted by the Grade 1 Carter Handicap at seven furlongs. The young sire, whose third crop comprises juveniles of 2024, is already the sire of 12 stakes winners, well represented on both dirt and turf, including Grade 1 dirt winner One in Vermillion and graded stakes-winning turf female Danse Macabre.
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