New Year's Day, Midnight Lute more than earning their keep

New Year’s Day and Midnight Lute got major boosts on the global sire list earlier this year as their respective champion runners Maximum Security and Midnight Bisou finished one-two in the inaugural $20 million Saudi Cup. While neither stallion cracks the top 10 list based upon North American earnings – reigning leading sire Into Mischief tops that list – neither is a one-hit wonder for the season. Both had graded stakes winners in May at Santa Anita, and Midnight Lute, in particular, is having a solid season.

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Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner New Year’s Day stood until 2018 at Hill ‘n’ Dale Farm, alongside Eclipse Award champion and two-time Breeders’ Cup Sprint winner Midnight Lute. New Year’s Day was then sold to continue his career in Brazil for the 2019 season, then changed hands again and traveled to Japan for 2020. Multiple Grade 1 winner and Eclipse Award honoree Maximum Security, who earned the $10 million winner’s share of the Saudi Cup purse in his only start in 2020, accounts for the vast majority of his sire’s $10,562,279 earnings worldwide through May 31. New Year’s Day recorded his first U.S. graded winner of the season when his daughter Fighting Mad won the Grade 2 Santa Maria Stakes on Sunday at Santa Anita.

Meanwhile, Midnight Lute has bankrolled $5,020,342 worldwide this season, with $3.5 million of that coming from his champion daughter Midnight Bisou’s runner-up effort in the Saudi Cup. But Midnight Lute has another high-class daughter running this season in Keeper Ofthe Stars, who won the Grade 2 Buena Vista Stakes in February and the Grade 1 Gamely Stakes on May 25, both at Santa Anita.

Midnight Lute also is the sire of Midcourt, winner of the Grade 2 San Pasqual Stakes and third in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap this year; Midnight Fantasy, winner of the Spring Fever Stakes at Oaklawn; and Smooth Like Strait, winner of the War Chant Stakes at Churchill Downs.