A new chapter in the amazing tale of Midnights Legacy as he becomes a father for the first time

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Here, Martin Stevens gets Grace Skelton of Alne Park Stud talking about all things Midnights Legacy. Subscribers can get more great insight every Monday to Friday.

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David and Kathleen Holmes’ ambitious, some thought absurd, plan to turn one of the last colts by their late rags-to-riches National Hunt sire Midnight Legend into a stallion continues to come to fruition.

The first progeny of Midnights Legacy, as the bay colt was named months after his birth in 2017, are arriving this year and receiving warm reviews.

To refresh your memory: Midnight Legend, a well bred son of Night Shift and the winning Troy mare Myth, developed into a fair stayer on the Flat for his first trainer Luca Cumani and owners Umm Qarn Farm, winning valuable handicaps at Royal Ascot and Glorious Goodwood at three and adding two more Listed successes to his record at four and five.

He was later sold to Sir Stanley Clarke, who took the unorthodox decision to keep him entire when he sent him to David Nicholson for a hurdling campaign, with one eye on a potential future stallion role.

Midnight Legend took to jumping like a duck to water. He landed the Top Novices' Hurdle at Aintree and the Punchestown Champion Novice Hurdle on only his third and fourth starts for Nicholson and later, after a brief spell at stud, finished third to Istabraq and French Holly in the Aintree Hurdle.

Retired for good and sent to Conkwell Grange Stud near Bath, he was languishing covering only a handful of mediocre mares when David and Kathleen Holmes bought him as a replacement for their recently deceased stallion Bonny Scot, and he moved to their Pitchall Farm in Warwickshire.

Seemingly out of nowhere, Midnight Legend’s modestly bred small early crops came up with talented performers such as Aimigayle, Holmwood Legend, Midnight Chase, My Petra and Sparky May.

He gradually gained wider recognition and received better mares at his new home, leading to the emergence of more top-class runners by him, none better than Cheltenham Gold Cup hero Sizing John.

Midnight Legend died aged 25 in 2016, weeks after getting Midnights Legacy’s dam Giving in foal. The Generous mare was also not long for this world, and died aged 14 shortly after foaling the colt the following May.

The fact that Giving was so blueblooded – a half-sister to Classic-placed Lethals Lady and Champion Hurdle hero Katchit’s dam Miracle, from the further family of National Stakes victor Manntari – encouraged David and Kathleen Holmes to pursue their dream of making him into a successor to his sire in the breeding shed, and giving him his portentous name.

Midnights Legacy was sent to Alan King, who was assistant to Nicholson when he was training Midnight Legend, and won five of his 19 starts on the Flat – including the Northern Dancer Handicap at Epsom on Derby day in consecutive years – and three of his seven starts over hurdles.

A knock on his leg, sustained shortly before he was due to tackle a Listed race on the all-weather at Kempton, forced him into retirement and last year he joined the burgeoning stallion roster at Grace Skelton’s Alne Park Stud in Warwickshire, as the only son of Midnight Legend at stud.

Midnights Legacy covered a select book of 16 mares in his first season and, to bring the story bang up to date, a handful of foals resulting from those matings have been born in the past few weeks.

“I’ve got three foals, all fillies, by him here on the farm,” says Skelton. “One is out of Karastani, a Dalakhani mare from a lovely Aga Khan Studs family; one is out of Devito’sredrobin, a Robin Des Champs mare closely related to More Of That; and one is out of A Little Chaos, a daughter of Yeats who was a good racemare and is a half-sister to Party Business.

“With my own mares, I wanted to send him a cross-section of pedigrees and physical types to see what he produced, and what might suit him best in future, but they’re all scopey and balanced, and really nice stamps.”

Midnights Legacy took after Midnight Legend, in that he is a handsome, athletic bay with no white markings, with a willing, generous attitude. So are Midnights Legacy’s foals continuing the theme?

The first foal by Alne Park Stud's Midnights Legacy, a filly out of a maiden mare born in France

“They definitely resemble their father insofar as he’s a lovely physical specimen and moves really effortlessly – he actually floats; you could watch him on the lunge all day – and so are they," says Skelton.

“You certainly see that now that those foals are a little bit older and turned out in the paddock. They all have that lovely lightness of movement. It all seems very effortless for them too.

“I know that it might seem a bit of a stretch to say that when they’re still gangly newborns, but they all definitely know where their feet are. There isn’t a single one who I’ve thought, ‘oh, you’re going to be a problem’.”

Skelton has also seen photos and footage of several other early Midnights Legacy foals, including a filly out of the multiple-winning Noroit mare Une De La Seniere bred by Martin Rice’s F&M Bloodstock and born in France, and an Irish-foaled colt out of the well bred Authorized mare Authorized Pursuit, sold as part of Mike and Eileen Newbould’s dispersal.

“The filly was the first Midnights Legacy foal to be born, as far as I’m aware, and she looked very nice,” she says. “The colt looks really, really smart too; a cracker, in fact. 

“They’re popping out all over the place now, and there’s plenty more to come as it’s only mid-March, so these are exciting times.”

Skelton is under no illusions, though, that Midnights Legacy – who “settled in beautifully” at Alne Park Stud and is “level-headed, except if he thinks you’ve got Polo mints, and then he’ll go for you” – will have to do it the hard way, like his sire, with the numbers he has covered.

“We all recognise that,” she says. “His name is the story, and has always belied his future, and a big part of that is this is the fulfilment of a dream.

“But every breeder in this sport is pursuing a dream. You have to have that vision, that hope, that your mare will go to the right stallion and the foal will inherit the right combination of genes to make them a star.

“It can still go wrong for those who spend a fortune on sending their mares to well established, top-class sires. The beauty of this industry is you can spend less money on horses you like as a physical, or whose sire or page you like, and you can come up with a good one too. The dream is alive for everyone.

“Once the mare is in foal, the path is the same. There are no guarantees in this game, and sometimes you’ve got to take an educated risk.”

Warming to her theme, she continues: “If Midnights Legacy had been the only son of Midnight Legend and retired to stud with black type, it would have been very different, but his injury was well documented and it remains the fact that you open the newspaper every day at this time of year and see a slack-handful of winners and placed horses by Midnight Legend.

Grace Skelton, owner of Alne Park Stud with her daughter FlorenceCredit: Edward Whitaker

“Loads of colts are retired to stud each year principally because of the identity of their sires, and turn out to be successful, so there’s no reason it won’t work with him as well.

“He ticks all the boxes from a physical perspective, and although he didn’t have black type he got high ratings, including over jumps. 

“I was chatting with people about industry issues at Doncaster in January, and a lot were saying it was a shame that jumps stallions in Britain and Ireland hadn’t done it over obstacles themselves, like many in France have. Well, here’s one who proved he could do it, and at a decent level too.”

There was a common misconception when the plan to make a stallion out of the then foal-aged Midnights Legacy first broke that David and Kathleen Holmes were wide-eyed hayseeds, letting their hearts rule their heads.

But the Yorkshire-born couple have run successful businesses for decades, and know the horse industry inside out, so were always aware that they were chasing a dream. As it is, they have already beaten huge odds in getting Midnights Legacy to the point that he is siring offspring.

Similarly, Skelton is not standing the horse, and sending him some of her most choice mares, out of naive optimism. It is strictly business, and the foals she has bred from him will head to market, all being well.

“Everything we breed will go into the ring as foals if they’re good enough,” she says. “It would be a very quick way to lose money if I put every foal in the field and waited until they were three, or even kept them forever.

“I think that because of my name, and the proximity to the racing yard, the perception is we’re squirrelling the good ones away for a rainy day. But that is absolutely not the case. This has got to pay its way. It’s a business.

“The stallions have got to be promoted and supported with the right mares, in order for them to produce the right foals that will suit the market. If I don’t do that, I’m doing a disservice to them.”

So when Skelton says she thinks Midnights Legacy can do it as a stallion, in spite of his lack of numerical opportunity to date, she isn’t doing so for the sake of keeping a good story going.

“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again with even more confidence now that I’ve seen his foals: I really think in three or four years’ time he’s going to look tremendous value,” she insists. “If he’s even half as good as his father was at stud, he’ll be doing well. 

“We’re supporting him with mares – good mares – and I really believe that the quality of his stock is excellent, and he has the potential to be siring the next generation of Sizing Johns. He’s got every chance.”

Midnights Legacy is one of four stallions standing at one of Britain’s most upwardly mobile jumps breeding outfits, alongside founding member Dink, the source of Grace's husband Dan’s top two-mile chaser Nube Negra; Ocovango, whose son Langer Dan successfully defended his Coral Cup crown at the Cheltenham Festival last week for the same stable; and newcomer Subjectivist, a five-length winner of the Gold Cup.

“I’ve been overwhelmed by how well we’ve been received,” says Skelton. “In the space of four years we’ve gone from just Dink and 11 broodmares to four stallions and more than 100 mares on the place, between our own and boarders. It’s a wonderful state of affairs to be in.

Dink with stallion manager Oli Russell at Alne Park StudCredit: Edward Whitaker

“When I started this I was very clear that I wanted growth to be organic; I didn’t want to inflate the market artificially, so I didn’t bang the drum wildly, advertising everywhere. 

“I wanted to see what demand there was, to allow the business to grow of its own accord, or not if that was the case. I actually think there’s been a change in British jumps breeding even since I entered it, in terms of the quality of stallions. It’s improved a lot, and that’s a lovely thing.”

But, again, don’t go thinking that Skelton is ignorant of, or immune to, the challenges faced by the British National Hunt industry,

“I’m a businessperson, and I’m alive to the fact that we don’t have as many broodmares in this country as we used to,” she says. “There aren’t nearly as many as the Irish have, and that limits the domestic market.

“I wasn’t sure we would be able to sustain the stud, so I’m delighted that we’ve been able to do not just that, but grow it too. The staff, the stallion roster and the stud itself – we have two sites now, with the foaling unit and covering unit being separate – have all gone up.”

Perhaps one of the key elements of Alne Park Stud’s early success has been standing such a diverse range of sires.

“What I’ve been careful about is that the stallions we bring in don’t tread on each other’s toes, they all have something different to offer. They’re from different sire lines and families and had different race records,” says Skelton. “There’s no point offering the same product four times over.

“We’re very excited about Subjectivist. He was a fantastic racehorse, extraordinary in fact; there aren’t many out there who beat Stradivarius. He really fills the eye, he’s a knockout, and now he’s in the breeding shed and he’s got his first mares in foal. He’s tremendously exciting.”

Midnights Legacy is certainly in good company, both equine and human, as he writes new chapters in his already amazing life story.

Perhaps the next time we turn the page in Good Morning Bloodstock, he will have his first winners and have emulated Midnight Legend again.

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Good Morning Bloodstock  is our latest email newsletter. Leading bloodstock journalist Martin Stevens provides his take and insight on the biggest stories every morning from Monday to Friday.