Miss Temple City Heads Stout Beaugay Lineup

First came an unauthorized jaunt at Palm Meadows Training Center, then a torrential downpour that softened the Churchill Downs turf beyond preference. 

Now Miss Temple City's status for take three is up in the air.

The multiple grade 1 winner experienced a tumultuous spring while returning to the races for trainer Graham Motion, and her connections hoped a start in the $150,000 Beaugay Stakes (G3T) May 13 at Belmont Park would put her on track for her ultimate target—a return to Royal Ascot in June. But with storms in the forecast for the New York area Saturday, there's a chance Miss Temple City may be scratched again, as she was from the May 6 Churchill Distaff Turf Mile Stakes Presented by Longines (G2T) at Churchill Downs.

"I just hung up the phone with Graham and he's very concerned," said breeder and co-owner Bob Feld, who campaigns Miss Temple City with Sagamore Farm and Needle In A Haystack. "It's supposed to be a nor'easter that's going to drop three to four inches of rain, and if that's the case we probably would scratch."

Motion took great care to avoid a 2017 debut over a boggy course last weekend with the 5-year-old daughter of Temple City  . That marked the second delay in this year's campaign for the strapping bay, who gave her connections the slip one morning in March at Palm Meadows, returned with filling in a leg, and did not make a planned start at Keeneland in April as a result. Pre-entered in both the June 20 Queen Anne Stakes (G1) and the June 21 Duke of Cambridge Stakes (G2), Miss Temple City is running out of time to get a stateside race under her girth.

"I was worried about running her on a weird, soft turf course coming off a minor injury plus a layoff to boot," Motion said. "I'm afraid I'll probably find myself in the same situation this weekend. We've talked about going to Ascot without a race and if that happens, that happens. I'd like to run this weekend, but I don't know."

"Graham said, 'I can't believe all the little things that are happening (to delay her first race of 2017), and now the rain is following us around the country,' and I said, 'I know what's happening—the racing gods want us to run at Royal Ascot off the layoff," Feld said. "I told Graham two months ago I would have no problem running at Ascot off a layoff. The numbers show last year her best race was her first race off the layoff. Graham knows how to get her ready, he can do it." 

Miss Temple City performed well at Royal Ascot going a mile the past two years, finishing fourth by two lengths in the 2015 Coronation Stakes (G1) and occupying the same position again in last year's Duke of Cambridge Stakes. She closed out her 2016 campaign with a victory in the Dec. 4 Matriarch Stakes (G1T) at Del Mar—her third top-level triumph in a year that also saw her defeat males in both the Maker's 46 Mile (G1T) and Shadwell Turf Mile (G1T).

"We didn't nominate to the (May 20) Gallorette (G3T, at Pimlico Race Course), and that's only four weeks out, so I'd much rather run fresh than run four weeks out, especially considering the travel (to England)," Feld said.  

Motion kept Miss Temple City sharp with a May 9 breeze on the all-weather track at Fair Hill Training Center, where she clocked five furlongs in 1:01. If the rain holds off for the Beaugay, she will break from the outside in a field of eight as the 123-pound co-highweight under Edgar Prado. The 1 1/16-mile test includes grade 1 winners Dacita and Time and Motion, along with grade 2 winner Rainha Da Bateria.

Sheep Pond Partners and Bradley Thoroughbreds' Dacita will also make her first start of the year in the Beaugay, and also carries 123. The Chad Brown trainee closed out 2016 with a runner-up finish by just a nostril to fellow Brown-trained Beaugay contender Rainha Da Bateria in the Sept. 17 Canadian Stakes (G2T) at Woodbine, after winning the New York Stakes (G2T) and Diana Stakes (G1T) back to back at Belmont and Saratoga Race Course.

The Scat Daddy mare worked four furlongs in :48.41 May 8 on the Oklahoma training track at Saratoga in preparation for this start, and put together a solid work pattern at Palm Meadows before shipping to New York at the end of April. Lael Stable's Rainha Da Bateria followed the same routine this spring, and gets her season rolling after a fifth place finish in the Oct. 16 E .P. Taylor Stakes Presented by HPIBet (G1T) at Woodbine.

Phillips Racing Partnership's homebred Time and Motion looks to rebound from a sixth in her season debut for trainer Jimmy Toner, the April 15 Coolmore Jenny Wiley Stakes (G1T) at Keeneland. She is another who put together consecutive stakes scores in 2016, when she took the Lake Placid Stakes (G2T) at Saratoga and stepped up to the highest level with a victory in the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup Presented by Lane's End (G1T) at Keeneland.

"I got a little ahead of myself," said Toner, who won the 2007 and 2012 editions of the Beaugay with Masseuse and Winter Memories. "I knew I was behind the other fillies in the race as far as training was concerned, but she got to doing so well I felt like it would be OK. She just wasn't 100% ready, so she came up a little bit empty the last part of it. 

"It was against Lady Eli and Dickinson; it was a solid field. She'll definitely improve off that. She got that race into her and this was the race I was originally pointing for, so we're here and we've got one under our belt."

Toner sent Time and Motion through five furlongs on Belmont's inner turf May 8 in 1:01.43 and will add blinkers to the daughter of Tapit   for the first time Saturday.

Also returning to the races is Stuart S. Janney III homebred On Leave, who has not raced since a fourth in the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup in October. Trained by Shug McGaughey, that one will be accompanied to the post by stakes-placed stablemate All in Fun.

Stakes winner My Sweet Girl and graded stakes-placed Hawksmoor complete the field.

Beaugay S. (G3)

Belmont Park, Saturday, May 13, 2017, Race 6

• 1 1/16m
• Inner turf
• $150,000
• 4 yo's & up Fillies and Mares
• 4:09 PM (local)

PP	Horse	Jockey	Wgt	Trainer	M/L
1	1Rainha Da Bateria (KY)	Joel Rosario	119	Chad C. Brown	8/1
2	2My Sweet Girl (KY)	Manuel Franco	119	Barclay Tagg	20/1
3	3Hawksmoor (IRE)	Julien R. Leparoux	119	Arnaud Delacour	12/1
4	4Time and Motion (KY)	John R. Velazquez	123	James J. Toner	4/1
5	5All in Fun (KY)	Javier Castellano	115	Claude R. McGaughey III	15/1
6	6Dacita (CHI)	Irad Ortiz, Jr.	123	Chad C. Brown	3/1
7	7On Leave (KY)	Jose L. Ortiz	121	Claude R. McGaughey III	6/1
8	8Miss Temple City (KY)	Edgar S. Prado	123	H. Graham Motion	2/1