By Bill Finley
Coming off a smashing win in the GII Fleur de Lis S., Midnight Bisou (Midnight Lute) will ship to Saratoga Wednesday, where she will prepare for the Aug. 1 GI Personal Ensign S.
“After she gets settled in in Saratoga we will start gearing her up for her summer campaign with the expectation that she will run next in the Personal Ensign,” said Jeff Bloom, whose Bloom Racing Stable is the majority owner of the Eclipse-Award winning 5-year-old.
Bloom said the main goal after the Personal Ensign will be to get Midnight Bisou to the Breeders' Cup, but which Breeders' Cup race she competes in has yet to be decided. Bloom confirmed that the GI Breeders' Cup Classic is a possibility.
“Our goal, ultimately, is to get her to the Breeders' Cup and when I say Breeders' Cup I am not being specific about a race,” Bloom said. “We will keep our options open. That lends itself to potentially going against the boys again. At the end of the day, the goal is the Breeders' Cup. So far as which race, we will see how things play out over the course of the summer.”
Midnight Bisou, the 2019 champion older filly or mare, has had a brief but highly successful campaign so far this year. She was second behind Maximum Security (New Year's Day) in the Saudi Cup and then came back to win the Fleur de Lis by 8 1/4 lengths. Bloom is confident his mare can handle just about anything.
“We know where she stands,” he said. “She is proven. She has shown her abilities and her level of success. She has answered those questions on the racetrack. Obviously, she has shown that she's capable of running with the best in the world. She did it in the race in Saudi Arabia.”
As well as she ran in Saudi Arabia, the Fleur de Lis may have been her best ever performance.
“I wouldn't say I was surprised, it was more that I was in awe of her,” Bloom said of the Fleur de Lis. “She was off for four months, she traveled across the world and went up against a quality group of fillies and then dominated them. I simply was awestruck watching it. Coming home, she was under a wrap, just under complete wraps. Mike Smith's comments to me following the race was that as good as this filly has been, she has never felt any better than she did in this race. He said that he had so much left in the tank. It was pretty exciting.”
With Midnight Bisou pointing to the Personal Ensign and with Monomoy Girl (Tapizar) set to go in the July 11 GII Ruffian S. at Belmont, the two rivals remain on different paths. That doesn't mean that Bloom wouldn't relish the opportunity to square off with and beat Monomoy Girl.
“As a racing fan, how could you not want to see a match-up between those two fillies and watch them go head to head?” Bloom said. “It's incredible that they were able to get Monomoy Girl back to the races off such an extended time period and to bring her back to a top level is great. It certainly lends itself to a potential for a match-up between Midnight Bisou and Monomoy Girl in the not too distant future. It would be a really good thing for horse racing and for fans to see them run again and see how it plays out.”
Bloom is also keeping an eye on Saudi Arabia. Maximum Security was trained at the time by Jason Servis, one of the trainers indicted for allegedly giving performance-enhancing drugs to his horses. Saudi racing authorities have said they are investigating the race and Servis and are withholding paying out the purse. If Maximum Security is disqualified Midnight Bisou would be declared the winner. Bloom said he has not been given any updates by the Saudis.
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