After Jim McKay Maryland Million day started with three straight winners at 3-1 or less, Bad Temper shook things up in the Cupid Maryland Million Distaff Starter Handicap with a two and three-quarter-length win at 35-1 at Laurel Park on Oct. 14.

The 5-year-old daughter of former Country Life Farm stallion Super Ninety Nine entered the race off a second-place finish at Timonium on Aug. 25 following a wide trip. Previously trained by owner Horace Parker, who races under the name Brothers In Blue, she made her first start for the Gina Perri barn on Maryland Million day.

Breaking from post three under Tais Lyapustina in the 13-horse field, Bad Temper started well and drafted off the pace on the inside. Holy Delite set the early pace with Tam Char just to her outside, through an opening quarter in :23.33 and the half in :47.45. Holy Delite started to fade on the turn, and Tam Char took control, with Utterly Enchanting moving up on the outside. Meanwhile, Bad Temper continued to rate behind a wall of horses.

As they entered the stretch, Lyapustina briefly angled Bad Temper off the inside, but moved her back when a large opening materialized. She surged to the lead, as Utterly Enchanting (Despite the Odds) and Tam Char (Great Notion) had no response and finished second and third, respectively. The final time for seven furlongs over the “wet fast” main track was 1:25.78. 

The victory improved Bad Temper’s career mark to 4-4-4 from 32 starts, with earnings of $114,054. From a dozen starts this year, she has banked $69,620 while recording three wins, two seconds and a third. 

Out of the Quiet American mare Seven Days, she was bred by William Campbell and sold as a weanling for $10,000 from the Bill Reightler consignment at the 2019 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Fall Yearling sale. She made her first two starts for Parker with trainer Kelly Deiter at Delaware Park in 2021 before Parker took over her training.

Seven Days was claimed by Campbell for $7,500 at Laurel Park in December 2013, and won twice for him before her retirement in January 2015. The first of three foals she produced for Campbell was $233,089-earner Seven On the Rocks (Rock Slide); her third is Bad Temper. The mare was sold not in foal for $9,500 at the 2018 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic December Mixed sale, the same sale as her daughter, and the same year her half-sister Freddie’s Girl was represented by group-winning son Tip Two Win, who finished second in that year’s English classic Two Thousand Guineas-G1 at Newmarket.