There are times when equine matchups like Elate vs. Midnight Bisou fail to live up to the hype, especially in a setting like Saratoga, where championship dreams can quickly come to an end.
There are times when equine matchups like Elate vs. Midnight Bisou fail to live up to the hype, especially in a setting like Saratoga, where championship dreams can quickly come to an end.
Yet on the afternoon of the 150th edition of the Travers, the two distaff stars put on a show as good as two horses possibly could as they crossed the finish line together at the end of the 1 1/8 miles in the $700,000 Personal Ensign Stakes, a “Win and You’re In” race for the Longines Breeders’ Cup Distaff.
As onlookers collectively held their breath and waited for the photo finish camera to decide the winner, Jeff Bloom, one of Midnight Bisou’s owners, was putting on a brave front while his stomach was moving around like a rollercoaster.
“I passed out internally three times waiting for the photo,” said Bloom, whose Bloom Racing Stable owns Midnight Bisou along with Sol Kumin’s Madaket Stables and Allen Racing. “I thought she got the bob because this filly knows how to win.”
Indeed, she does.
As much as the multiple Grade 1-winning Elate and jockey Jose Ortiz seemed headed for victory when she forged to the front at the top of the lane, Midnight Bisou and jockey Mike Smith moved up from last in the field of six and launched a furious stretch drive to move within a head of Elate at the eighth pole.
“It was unbelievably exciting,” said Steve Asmussen, who trains Midnight Bisou. “They both came into the stretch with a lot of horse. You could tell how confident Jose was when he came into the stretch, and you knew they were going to lock up.”
What happened in that final furlong merits inclusion in a time capsule as Midnight Bisou, a 4-year-old Midnight Lute filly, and Elate, a homebred 5-year-old Medaglia d’Oro mare, courageously battled to the wire, with Elate seeming to hold an edge until the last stride when Midnight Bisou prevailed by a nose.
“It was a fight to get by Elate. She’s a champion in her own right,” said Smith, who dedicated the win to Carmen Barrera, the New York Racing’s Association’s longtime director of horsemen’s relations who passed away this month. “With the extra pounds [Midnight Bisou gave Elate four pounds], it took a bit to get her going, but when she did, I was happy I had the mile and an eighth.”—Bob Ehalt