NEWS: BREEDING

Midnight Lute Sibling Bank Heist to stand at Kaz Hill

Friday, December 16th, 2011
by Sarah Mace

Bank Heist, a four-year-old half brother to multiple Grade 1 winner and 2007 champion sprinter Midnight Lute, will enter his stud career in 2012 at Peter Kazamias’ Kaz Hill Farm in Middletown.

A dark bay son of Maria’s Mon, Bank Heist is out of the unraced Dehere mare Candytuft and is her most successful sales offspring, commanding $900,000 at the 2007 Keeneland September Yearling sale. All six of Candytuft’s foals to start are winners, with sprint champion Midnight Lute, by Real Quiet, heading the family ($2,690,600). Midnight Lute, two-time winner of the Breeders’ Cup Sprint, entered stud at Hill ’n’ Dale Farms near Lexington in 2009 and bred 159 mares in his first year. Candytuft has produced two more stakes horses: Captain Cherokee by Sir Cherokee with four Grade 2 placings to his credit ($361,845) and filly Tusculum Rd (Gilded Time), who is stakes placed. Bank Heist’s second dam Bolt From the Blue is a graded winner and producer of stakes horses.

Peter Kazamias said, “Bank Heist has a pedigree that’s as good as any horse standing in New York in 2012. His sire was a blazing-fast and precocious two-year-old, but he’s also sired two Kentucky Derby winners in Monarchos and Super Saver, and an Eclipse champion turf mare in Wait a While, among his 59 total stakes winners. Even better, Bank Heist’s dam produced Midnight Lute, who’s among the most exciting freshman sire prospects of 2012.”

Kazamias added, “We feel like Bank Heist can be to Midnight Lute what Freud is to Giant’s Causeway—a value-priced, New York-based version of his Kentucky-based brother that gives local breeders an opportunity to hit it out of the ballpark. We’ll be supporting Bank Heist with a number of our own best mares.”

Bank Heist ($58,000), who won once in six career starts for owners George Bolton and Gulf Coast Farms and trainer Todd Pletcher, will stand for $2,500, but the fee will be waived for black-type mares, mares with black type under the first dam, and winners or producers of $50,000 or more.

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