Twilight Payment (foaled 6 May 2013) is an Irish Thoroughbred racehorse best known for winning the 2020 Melbourne Cup. Bred and originally trained by Jim Bolger he did not race until he was three years old but showed promising form over extended distances as he won two races including the Listed Loughbrown Stakes in his first season. He ran consistently as a four-year-old without winning a race and was gelded at the end of the year, but in 2018 he took his second Listed prize as he won Her Majesty's Plate. In 2019 he won the Saval Beg Stakes and the Curragh Cup before moving to the stable of Joseph Patrick O'Brien. As a seven-year-old in 2020 he took the Vintage Crop Stakes and a second Curragh Cup before being sent to Australia and winning the Melbourne Cup on 3 November and produced a new career peak Timeform rating of 121.
Background
Twilight Payment is a bay horse with a white star and a white sock on his left foreleg bred in Ireland by the trainer Jim Bolger. He entered training with Bolger at Coolcullen, County Carlow and was ridden in most of his early races by Bolger's son-in-law Kevin Manning. The horse initially raced in the colours of Godolphin.
He was from the fifth crop of foals sired by the Teofilo the undefeated European Champion Two-Year-Old of 2006. Teofilo's other European offspring have included Cross Counter, Trading Leather, Pleascach and Parish Hall: he has also had great success in Australia where his major winners have included Happy Clapper, Humidor and Kermadec. Twilight Payment's dam Dream On Buddy showed modest racing ability, winning two minor races from eleven starts. She was a half-sister to the Ribblesdale Stakes winner Banimpire and a great-granddaughter of the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe winner Detroit.
Racing career
2016 & 2017: early career
Twilight Payment did not race until he was three years old and began his track career by running fourth in a maiden race over thirteen furlongs at Navan Racecourse on 15 May 2016. After finishing second in a similar event at the same track thirteen days later he was stepped up in class and took third place in the Listed Queen's Vase over two miles at Royal Ascot. At the Curragh on 16 July he started the 4/6 favourite for a one and a half mile maiden and recorded his first success as he led from the start and prevailed by a length from Ex Patriot. He then ran second to Order of St George in the Irish St Leger Trial before ending his first season in the Listed Loughbrown Stakes at the Curragh on 25 September when he produced a strong late run to win by half a length from the favourite Forgotten Rules.
Twilight Payment failed to win as a four-year-old in 2017, but ran well in several major staying events. He finished third to Torcedor in the Vintage Crop Stakes at Navan in April, second to Order of St George in the Saval Beg Stakes at Leopardstown Racecourse in May, second to The Tartan Spartan when favourite for Her Majesty's Plate at Down Royal in July and third to Order of St George in the Irish St Leger Trial at the Curragh in August. At the end of the season he was gelded.
2018: five-year-old season
In 2018 Twilight Payment ran second to Order of St George in the Saval Beg Stakes and then finished third behind Flag of Honour in the Curragh Cup. On 27 July he started favourite for Her Majesty's Plate over fourteen furlongs on Good to Firm ground at Down Royal and recorded his first victory in 20 months as he won "comfortably" by three and a half lengths from Law of Spin after taking the lead approaching the last quarter mile. He went on to run second to Flag of Honour in the Irish St Leger Trial and fourth behind the same horse in the Irish St Leger. In his two subsequent starts he finished second to Cypress Creek when favourite for the Loughbrown Stakes and third to Sir Erec in the Listed Martin Molony Stakes at Limerick Racecourse on 13 October.
In November the gelding was consigned to the Goffs Horses In Training sale and was bought for €200,000 by the bloodstock agents Kerr & Co Ltd.