Weather a concern for Sole of the City

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - If the local weather forecast holds, the mercury could hit 92 degrees on Wednesday afternoon at Arlington Park, and that is not a good thing for Sole of the City.

Sole of the City brings career-best form into the featured fourth race here at Arlington, but she is well known to her trainer, Roger Brueggemann, as a spring and fall kind of horse.

"She just doesn't like the heat very much," Brueggemann said.

But if Sole of the City can beat the heat, she can beat five opponents in a high-end six-furlong allowance race also open to $80,000 claimers; Sole of the City is the lone entrant entered under the claiming option. And the temperature, in fact, probably is more of a concern for Sole of the City than a move back to Polytrack after nine straight dirt races.

"I don't think that's a problem," said Brueggemann, a trainer who, like his mare, does best in spring and fall. "She ran fine on the Polytrack last year."

True enough. Sole of the City's form going 10 races back shows a win over Arlington Poly in a one-turn mile. And Sole of the City definitely is a better sprinter than miler - good enough to have won a $50,000 stakes three races ago at Prairie Meadows, just missed in another such race two starts back at Canterbury, and finished a creditable third behind high-class Miss Macy Sue last out in the $100,000 Saylorville, also at Prairie Meadows.

If Sole of the City comes into Wednesday's race in peak form, so does Magnetic Miss, who won an overnight stakes prep for the Isaac Murphy Handicap here June 1 by six lengths, then won the Isaac Murphy itself by 1 3/4 lengths on June 21. Both of those races were restricted to Illinois-breds, but Magnetic Miss classes up well enough against these open rivals, too.

Magnetic Miss and her 33 percent rider, 61-year-old Earlie Fires, led all the way in both recent wins, but could find front-end company Wednesday in Pola's Place, a mare who regularly runs 21-second-and-change opening quarter-miles on Polytrack. Pola's Place won the $50,000 Queen on March 22 at Turfway, and returns from a five-week freshening.

Taylor Madison and Modjadji, two-three behind Magnetic Miss in the Isaac Murphy, are not overmatched in this spot. And while V.I.P. Princess was thumped in her last five starts, she has won 3 of 6 synthetic-track races, and would only need to bounce back to her 2007 form to contend.