Miss Temple City brings Grade 1 credentials to Ladies Turf

FRANKLIN, Ky. – Racing has been conducted at Kentucky Downs since 1990, yet no one can seem to remember a three-time Grade 1 winner competing at this turf-only track.

That will change Saturday when Miss Temple City – whose training base is in Maryland, but who has made her reputation in Kentucky – will go postward as a heavy favorite in the $350,000 Kentucky Downs Ladies Turf.

Graham Motion, who trains Miss Temple City for a three-way partnership led by The Club Racing LLC, said this week from the Fair Hill training center that the Ladies Turf came up as a well-timed, sensible prep for the Grade 1 Shadwell Turf Mile four weeks later at Keeneland.

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“Her schedule has been somewhat interrupted this year, but by running at Kentucky Downs hopefully we can keep her on track to run at Keeneland, where she has always performed well,” Motion said.

Miss Temple City, a 5-year-old mare by Temple City, pulled off an historic feat at Keeneland in 2016 by defeating males in a sweep of both Grade 1 turf miles at the Lexington, Ky., track: the Maker’s 46 in the spring and the Shadwell in the fall. Her other Grade 1 victory came last November in the Matriarch at Del Mar, ending a campaign that in some years would have been worthy of a divisional Eclipse Award – but a mare named Tepin copped that honor.

Miss Temple City, with Hall of Fame jockey Edgar Prado to ride, will break from post 5 in a field of eight in the Ladies Turf, a one-mile race carded as the first of four straight stakes to end a 10-race Saturday program.

After a final pre-race breeze Monday, Miss Temple City shipped overnight by van from Maryland, arriving Tuesday. The work came over the Fair Hill synthetic, a seven-furlong drill in a sprightly 1:25.60, and Motion obviously is hoping Miss Temple City is prepared to fare better than she did in her only two starts this year. After finishing 13th of 16 as a 20-1 shot in the Group 1 Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot in June, she was third behind Wekeela and War Flag as an odds-on favorite in the Grade 3 Matchmaker on the July 30 Haskell card at Monmouth Park.

Her Saturday opposition includes Beauly (post 1, Jimmy Graham) and Linda (post 2, Brian Hernandez Jr.), the respective one-two finishers in a $100,000 turf stakes on the July 15 Indiana Derby undercard; Zipessa (post 4, Joe Bravo), who set the pace in the Grade 1 Beverly D. at Arlington last month and was scratched Wednesday from the One Dreamer here; and Susie Bee (post 7, Tyler Gaffalione), a late-running Calumet Farm homebred trained by Mike Maker.

Rounding out the cast are longshots Hone In (post 3, Jon Court), Majestic Angel (post 6, Florent Geroux), and Seeking Paradise (post 8, Chris Landeros).

The purse for the Ladies Turf includes $200,000 in bonuses for registered Kentucky-breds. All but Beauly qualify.