Miss Temple City gets back to her winning ways at Kentucky Downs
Miss Temple City held a big class advantage against the field of six in the $350,000 Kentucky Downs Ladies Turf and it showed as the Graham Motion trainee was able to easily get the lead down the stretch, although the final margin of victory was only a neck.
Only three horses in the field had recorded a graded stakes victory in their careers and that trio ended up finishing in the top three. Miss Temple City had three grade one victories in 2016, with two of them coming against the boys, second place went to Zipessa whose last victory was the grade three Dr. Penny at Parx, and in third was Linda who won the grade two Mrs. Revere at Churchill Downs last fall. Accordingly, those three were sent off as the topic three betting choices.
On paper, Zipessa looked like the only horse that liked to run on the lead and that is exactly what happened. When the starting gate sprung open on the European style turf course at Kentucky Downs that was rated as FIRM, Zipessa went straight for the lead and the rail and was able to relax in front by a length and a half. Jockey Edgar Prado was content and confident to sit just to the outside of the leader. The early fractions were 26.42, 48.96, and 1:13.36. As they approached the final turn, Prado moved with Miss Temple City and they drew even as they hit the very long stretch. He tapped the grade one winner a couple of times and they eased past Zipessa. Linda was switched to the rail and got near the top two; but in the end, she could not keep up with them.
“She was pretty relaxed today and she was waiting for me to tell her what to do,” Prado said. “I tried to wait as much as I could because it’s a very long stretch. When she went by the horse in front she thought it was all over, so she kind of slowed down a little bit. She’s a nice filly and I’m glad she’s back to her old form.”
The final time for the mile, the distance of all three of her grade one victories, was 1:36.91. Miss Temple City, who is owned by The Club Racing, Needle In A Haystack, and Sagamore Farm, upped her career record to 19: 7-3-3 with earnings of $1,677,868.
Motion was very pleased with today’s result, “We asked a lot of her this year with going to Ascot right off the bat and we just wanted to get her - A, a more relaxed environment, and B, a better spot, and I think hopefully we accomplished that today. She was much more relaxed today. She got very nervous at Monmouth [last start].”
For the bettors, Miss Temple City paid $3.60, 2.80, and 2.10 across the board. The $2 exacta with Zipessa returned $11.80 and the $2 trifecta was worth $22.40.
Looking ahead to the rest of the year Motion said, “We’ll take one step at a time. She loves Keeneland. The goal was to get her here and this would get her to the next step, Keeneland, which is a track that we know she loves.”