Temple Team Praying For Royal Ascot Success

Many racehorse owners dream of having a horse good enough to run at Royal Ascot. For the team involved with Wednesday's G2 Duke Of Cambridge S. runner Miss Temple City (Temple City), the dream has become reality not once but twice.

Sean Feld is the unofficial frontman for the Maryland-based group, which includes Allen Rosenblum, Sagamore Farm principal Kevin Plank–who in his 'day job' is CEO of the Under Armour sportswear company–as well as Sean's bloodstock agent father Bob Feld, Chris Closson and A J Jutte of The Club Racing LLC. The Felds have a particularly close tie to Miss Temple City, as they also bred the Graham Motion-trained filly from the treble winner and stakes-placed Artax mare Glittering Tax.

“My dad wanted to have a lifetime breeding right in Temple City and didn't have a mare to send to him,” explains Feld from the gardens of Newmarket's Jockey Club Rooms as he counts down the days to the Royal meeting.

“I was talking to [Spendthrift Stallion Director] Mark Toothaker at the sales one day about Tiz Wonderful and I looked up and there's a mare in foal to him in the ring going for $2,000. Mark went in and bought her and he didn't really have an owner for her. I told him my dad needed a mare for the Temple City deal, so they partnered up and this filly was the result of that. The stars have aligned more than once with Miss Temple City.”

That alignment has led to the 4-year-old Miss Temple City becoming the first Grade I winner for the young Spendthrift sire in her most recent start in the Maker's 46 Mile at Keeneland on Apr. 15. From her 10 career starts, exclusively on turf, the consistent filly has won four times and made seven appearances in stakes company, never finishing out of the first four.

Her trainer Graham Motion expressed surprise that Miss Temple City was sent off at odds of 50-1 when running in last year's G1 Coronation S. at Royal Ascot. She herself showed how misguided her starting price was when running fourth, just two lengths off the winner Ervedya (Fr) (Siyouni {Fr}), who was herself a neck ahead of subsequent GI Breeders' Cup Turf winner Found (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}).

Motion said last week, “I thought Miss Temple City ran very well at Royal Ascot last year. I discussed it with Sean and the team and we decided that we would like to come back. She needed to come out and run well first time out, which she did.”

“She is a bigger, stronger filly this year and her win against the boys last time was very impressive,” Motion added. “I have also been impressed with her work since then.”

British-born Motion also stated that training a winner at Royal Ascot is “on my bucket list”, and that's something in which Miss Temple City's enthusiastic owners are more than keen to play a part.

Feld said, “We wanted to come back the very next day after last year. We loved it. We had so much fun, even running fourth in the race. It was awesome.”

“I grew up watching Ascot in America, so to have a filly who will probably be second or third choice in a group race over here is pretty exciting,” Feld continued. “In the last 10 to 15 years, the meeting has taken on a whole new meaning internationally. Wesley Ward bringing horses over piqued the interest in America even more, but when I came over a couple of years ago just as a fan, that's when I knew we had to somehow get a horse to run over here. Luckily, a couple of years later we have one.”

He is effusive in his praise of the hospitality shown to international owners competing at Royal Ascot, and adds, “There really is nothing like it. It's Breeders' Cup times 100, it's the Kentucky Derby times 100. It's an amazing week. Everyone treats us so well, we've been treated like rock stars, which in America you don't really get. You're lucky to get a table somewhere if you have a runner in America whereas over here we have a whole box to ourselves and they pick us up and take us places. Everyone who runs here thinks they have a chance and everyone is in a good mood, win, lose or draw. The car park after the races is a ton of fun. It's an awesome event and I hope we can come back more and more.”

The dream is further fuelled by the team being successful in engaging Ryan Moore, who last year broke a Royal Ascot record in riding nine winners at the meeting, as a partner for Miss Temple City in place of last year's jockey John Velazquez.

“He's the best rider in the world, so any time you can get the best rider in the world on your horse it helps tremendously,” Feld noted. “Having a European jockey on a straight mile is a huge help, and the fact that he's the leading rider at Ascot in recent years is even better.”

Glittering Tax is already a proven producer, with the Tiz Wonderful foal she was carrying at the time of her purchase, Paganol, a winner at Churchill Downs last year, not to mention Miss Temple City and her year-younger full-sister Pricedtoperfection, who won the GIII Sweetest Chant S. at Gulfstream Park in January for Chad Brown. The Felds will be hoping that the magic continues through to her juvenile daughter Five Each Way, who is in training with Graham Motion and is by their own stallion, Bullet Train (GB), purchased from Juddmonte at the end of his racing career.

The idea to take the Group 3-winning son of Sadler's Wells to America began back in the June of Bullet Train's final year in training, in which he continued admirably to fulfil the role of work-mate and pacemaker for his illustrious half-brother Frankel (GB) (Galileo {Ire}).

“I was working for Spendthrift Farm selling nominations and they had been standing some stallions with really good pedigrees, who weren't awesome on the track but they were getting good mares,” recalls Feld. “We'd been watching Frankel and knew who Bullet Train was and my dad said, 'I think we should stand Bullet Train in America'. I told him he was crazy but the more I thought about it, the more I thought it could work. My dad put a group together with my uncle and a couple of other investors and they talked to Teddy Grimthorpe, who said, 'Make your one and best offer'.”

“They made a pretty good offer and in Breeders' Cup week Teddy told my dad personally in Santa Anita that we had him,” said Feld.

The deal being sealed led to Feld leaving Spendthrift to oversee the nominations and marketing for Bullet Train LLC, of which he is Managing Director. The 9-year-old stallion now stands at Crestwood Farm in Kentucky and shuttles to Bowness Stud in New South Wales for the Australian season.

Feld said, “It was a no-brainer to try to stand him in America. Obviously [his first crop] are running this year so we'll know soon enough how well he can do as a stallion. The year he first stood there was something like 30 new sires that year in Kentucky, so it was very competitive and we didn't get as many mares as we'd hoped, but he's got more than 40 2-year-olds this year and we have four of our own so we're going to help him out as much as possible.”

He added, “He bred over 160 mares at Bowness Stud in his first year and has the temperament to cope with it all really well. In America people are still kind of timid to have a grass horse so it's hard to get the mares, but he's a good-looking horse with a great pedigree and we're really excited.”

Feld's belief in the offspring of the Juddmonte mare Kind (GB) (Danehill) extends to having bought a mare in foal to Frankel's Oasis Dream (GB) half-brother Morpheus (GB), who stands in Ireland at Tally-Ho Stud, at Tattersalls in December.

“All I need now is a Frankel and a Noble Mission and I'll have the superfecta,” he jokes.

As a Grade I winner, Miss Temple City has already earned the right to be sent to Frankel herself. A victory at Royal Ascot would be the icing on the cake.