Miss Temple City works for Matriarch

Miss Temple City and Isotherm put in final workouts Saturday for the Grade I Matriarch Stakes and Hollywood Derby, respectively, the featured races on the Bing Crosby meeting’s closing weekend, December 3-4.

 

Del Mar racing officials opened the Jimmy Durante Turf Course for workouts a day earlier than usual in anticipation of rainstorms forecast to arrive in the area Saturday afternoon and continue through Sunday.

 

Miss Temple City worked five furlongs under assistant trainer/exercise rider Alice Clapham in 1:02.40 for the one-mile $300,000 Matriarch on Sunday, December 4. The 4-year-old daughter of Temple City has career earnings of more than $1.2 million from five wins in 15 career starts. A Grade I victory in the Shadwell Turf Mile at Keeneland in October is the highlight of a six-race 2016 campaign which has accrued $890,239 in earnngs.

 

Del Mar chief clocker John Malone had Miss Temple City in interim splits of  :12.40, :24.40, and :38.40  before a closing quarter in :24 flat.

 

Isotherm worked four furlongs in :50.80 under exercise rider Hector Diaz for the 1 1/8-mile Hollywood Derby next Saturday.

 

Isotherm, a Kentucky-bred son of Lonhro, arrived earlier this week from Belmont Park and will be making his first West Coast start. Owned by Matthew Schera and trained by George Weaver, Isotherm won the Grade III Pilgrim Stakes on the Belmont turf in September of 2015 in his third career start.

 

Winless since, Isotherm has narrow runner-up losses on turf in the Grade III Dania Beach in January at Gulfstream Park and Grade II Commonwealth Derby at Laurel in September of this year.

 

“He shipped well and he’s been doing excellently since he’s been here,” Weaver assistant Austin Trites, who accompanied the horse, said Saturday morning before the workout. “We’re just going to try and keep him the way he is up until the race.”

 

Trites, 29, has been with Weaver for about a year after previously being in the employ of Christophe Clement. Trites is a graduate of Wheaton College, outside of Boston.

 

“Got my education and still wound up working with the horses,” Trites said with a smile. “I lived in L.A. for two years after college, so I’ve been to Del Mar before, but only as a fan. This is different and I’m really enjoying it.”