Midnight Aria to Dominion Day next

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Midnight Aria ran to his second consecutive runner-up finish in the Grade 2 Eclipse Stakes on June 7 and will be looking to find the winner’s circle when he returns to the same distance of his 2013 Queen’s Plate triumph in the Grade 3, $150,000 Dominion Day Handicap on July 1 at Woodbine.

“He’s doing real well,” trainer Nick Gonzalez said. “He came out of the Eclipse just right. I think a mile and a quarter hits him on the head.”

Midnight Aria almost took the field gate to wire in the Eclipse but was caught a sixteenth of a mile from the finish by Are You Kidding Me. Gonzalez said the time between the Eclipse and the Dominion Day should be beneficial for Midnight Aria, who had raced in the Eclipse on about two weeks’ rest.

“He did what he usually does, try and make the pace, and all the credit in the world to the horse that ran him down,” he said. “We were coming off of one at seven-eighths, and we came back kind of quick in 15 days. This Dominion Day has given us four weeks, so it’s going to be the right timing and the right distance, and we’re looking forward to it, that’s for sure.”