After roaring debut, Mashallah may finally be ready to step up in Prioress
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SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Those who watched Mashallah win her debut the way she did in late April at Keeneland would have expected her to have already put a graded stakes on her résumé.
But one performance does not a career make, and the 3-year-old filly will look for that first graded win in Sunday’s Grade 3, $225,000 Prioress Stakes going six furlongs at Saratoga. Mashallah will face just five fillies, including multiple stakes winners Goodall and Mythical, as well as the well-bred Hen Party, who’s making her dirt debut.
Mashallah, a daughter of Maxfield owned by JR Ranch, won her debut on April 23 by 3 3/4 lengths, ran six furlongs in 1:09.49, and earned a gaudy 106 Beyer Speed Figure. Sent off at odds-on in her next race, a one-mile allowance on May 30 at Churchill Downs, she finished a well-beaten fifth. The fast track to stardom was detoured.
“After the first day, I think there was a high expectancy of her, as there is [with] a lot of horses that go out and win first time like that,” trainer Brendan Walsh said. “She showed the day she got beat at Churchill she was not ready to jump into the deep waters yet.”
A combination of experience and a turnback in distance led to a first-level allowance win July 4 at Saratoga, followed by a listed stakes victory in the Tyson Gilpin Stakes on Aug. 1 at Colonial Downs.
“When it comes to them as easy as it comes to her, sometimes they don’t learn an awful lot, and I think she needed racing and she needed some experience,” Walsh said. “She didn’t start until the spring of her 3-year-old year. Those horses are on the back foot from the get-go. The other fillies have an experience edge on them, and that accounts for a lot. I think she needed to get up to [speed] on that, which seems to be the case now. She’s probably ready now to take the next step.”
Manny Franco rides Mashallah from post 3.
Goodall, trained by Steve Asmussen, is a two-time listed stakes winner but is 0 for 3 in graded stakes. Following a runner-up finish in the Grade 3 Victory Ride at 6 1/2 furlongs and a third behind Explora and Percy’s Bar in the Grade 1 Test at seven furlongs, Goodall cuts back to six furlongs, a distance at which she is 3 for 4, including a victory in the Jersey Girl Stakes here June 4.
“She ran solid in the Test, beaten by two Grade 1 winners – good race,” Asmussen said. “Like her at three-quarters [of a mile]. She has solid races over the racetrack.”
Asmussen felt that, in the Victory Ride, Saratoga’s main track “was really slow that day” and may not have been to Goodall’s liking.
“Didn’t expect her to lose, and she did,” Asmussen added.
John Velazquez rides from post 4.
Hen Party, a Godolphin homebred daughter of Into Mischief trained by Eoin Harty, has won on synthetic and turf and will be making her dirt debut in this spot. Her dam, Fair Maiden, won on synthetic and turf and then won the Grade 1 La Brea on dirt. Hen Party, coming off a second-place finish in the Grade 3 Soaring Softly on turf here June 7, will be getting blinkers for the first time in the Prioress, where she breaks from the outside under Dylan Davis.
Mythical, a two-time dirt stakes winner here at 2 in 2025, returns to dirt after running fourth in the Galway on turf.
Vekoma’s Diva, trained by George Weaver, and Minute by Minute, sent out by Chad Brown, will be making their stakes debuts in the Prioress, which is race 4 on a 12-race card that begins at 12:05 p.m.