Before he died earlier this year, Battle of Midway scored the most prestigious victory of his career in the 2017 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile. Two years later, just days after the Breeders’ Cup, two foals from the only crop of the star-crossed racehorse will be offered at the major mixed auctions in Kentucky as something of collectors’ items. The regally bred Battle of Midway, by the late classic sire Smart Strike and out of Grade 1 winner Rigoletta, won or placed in six stakes and finished third in the Kentucky Derby at 3. He won the Grade 3 Affirmed Stakes at Santa Anita over that summer and continued on for a hard-fought victory over Sharp Azteca in the Dirt Mile at Del Mar. He was subsequently retired to co-owner WinStar Farm in Kentucky, expected to be a popular stallion as one of the last significant sons of Smart Strike to enter stud. :: DRF BREEDING LIVE: Real-time coverage of breeding and sales However, Battle of Midway was found to be subfertile, missing a gene that affected his sperm’s acrosome reaction, part of the process in which the female’s egg is fertilized. According to The Jockey Club’s Report of Mares Bred and resulting foal crop statistics, Battle of Midway covered 61 mares, resulting in seven live foals of 2019. Battle of Midway returned to the racetrack in August 2018, winning 3 of 6 outings in his second campaign. From that came one of the finest races of his career, as he bested Grade 1 winner McKinzie, now among the favorites for the Breeders’ Cup Classic, by a half-length in the Grade 2 San Pasqual Stakes on Feb. 2 at Santa Anita. Five days later, the first of the stallion’s small crop of foals arrived in Kentucky. But Battle of Midway’s saga, which appeared to be on an upward trajectory, came to a tragic end just three weeks later, when the 5-year-old sustained a fatal injury in a work at Santa Anita. His loss makes his handful of foals all the more intriguing. Battle of Midway’s two representatives in the fall catalogs are a weanling filly at the Fasig-Tipton November sale the evening of Nov. 5, and a colt who is scheduled to sell during Book 2 of the Keeneland November breeding stock sale on Nov. 7. The filly, already named Battle of Wits, will be the first horse into the ring at Fasig-Tipton. Consigned by Susan M. Forrester, as agent, she is out of the stakes-placed Lemon Drop Kid mare You’re Kidding. The colt at Keeneland is consigned by James B. Keogh’s Grovensale, as agent. He is out of the unraced Langfuhr mare Delicate Affair, who is from the family of Grade 1 winners Seeking the Gold and Fast Play.