Miss Temple City helps Matchmaker have Grade 1 feel

The Grade 3 Matchmaker Stakes looks more like a Grade 1.

The 1 1/8-mile turf race for fillies and mares Sunday at Monmouth Park marks the first North American start of 2017 for Miss Temple City, a multiple Group 1 winner whose star would shine even brighter had it not risen concurrently with the champion Tepin.

In most years, Miss Temple City would be an absolute Matchmaker standout. Not this year. Also entered are Wekeela, twice Grade 1-placed during her 2016 season and a fresh horse after only one 2017 start, and War Flag, who unleashed an awesome late burst to beat males in a high-end optional claimer on the Monmouth turf while making her North American debut.

The Matchmaker’s purse is $100,000, but the connections of the top three finishers earn a breeding season to one of three WinStar Farm stallions: Paynter, Fed Biz, or Take Charge Indy. The race is carded as the 11th of 14 at 5:12 p.m. Eastern. Miss Temple City, with Edgar Prado named to ride, is listed as the 4-5 morning-line favorite and is drawn in post 2 between Wekeela and War Flag in a seven-horse field.

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KEY CONTENDERS

Miss Temple City, by Temple City
Last 3 Beyers: NA-100-104

◗ Because of wet conditions, trainer Graham Motion twice scratched Miss Temple City this spring from races that were to have been preps for her third trip to Royal Ascot. The mare wound up making her 5-year-old debut in the Grade 1 Queen Anne Stakes and finished 13th after pressing a strong pace in the straight-course mile.

“We probably just asked too much of her,” Motion said. “She’d been ready to run for a month. She was on the muscle and got very wound up before the race, and she ran too sharp. She’s much more settled since she came back.”

◗ Miss Temple City finished a close fourth in a Grade 1 Diana at Saratoga last summer, but the July 22 edition of that race this year “just came up too fast,” Motion said.

◗ Miss Temple City on Sunday makes her first start at a distance as far as nine furlongs since the Diana. “With the Breeders’ Cup [Filly and Mare Turf] at 1 1/8 miles this year, we get to try that again. I think it’s well within her scope,” Motion said.

Wekeela, by Hurricane Run
Last 3 Beyers: 92-84-98

◗ Chad Brown-trained French import went to the sidelines after a disappointing 10th in the 2016 Diana, but in her June 11 comeback run, she showed the same electric turn of foot as in her best 2016 races. The graded-stakes-class My Impression set a slow pace, but Wekeela got her final three furlongs in 34.35 and her last furlong in 10.73 to post a narrow victory.

◗ Showed similarly strong acceleration last year in the Grade 1 Gamely, getting her last three furlongs in 34.63 when second behind Illuminant, who got the jump on her.

War Flag, by War Front
Beyer: 90

◗ Four-year-old Joe Allen homebred trained by Shug McGaughey ended the French phase of her career last summer with a win in the Group 3 Prix Chloe, a race Wekeela won in 2015.

◗ Last of eight turning for home in her June 18 North American debut, War Flag cruised up on the outside under Nik Juarez and, without ever being asked to run, won by a half-length over Muqtaser, who returned to win a Saratoga allowance race over the good horse Messi.