Malathaat notches third straight triumph with Demoiselle

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - As he watched jockey John Velazquez ask Malathaat for run at the three-eighths pole and again at the five-sixteenths pole without much response, trainer Todd Pletcher was getting concerned. The 2-5 favorite in the Grade 2, $150,000 Demoiselle Stakes looked in trouble.

“It didn’t seem she was going forward, it’s kind of a key point of the race where you want to be making some impact,” Pletcher said.

But turning into the stretch, Velazquez was able to get Malathaat into the clear. While it took her a few strides to get going, Malathaat lengthened her stride and rallied by Millefeuille to win the Demoiselle by three-quarters of a length in the slop at Aqueduct on Saturday.

Millefeuille finished second by 4 1/2 lengths over Malibu Curl. Café Society finished fourth, followed by Traffic Lane and Celestial Cheetah. Caramocha and Dollar Mountain scratched.

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The win was the third in as many starts for Malathaat, a royally bred daughter of two-time Horse of the Year Curlin and the Grade 1-winning dam Dreaming of Julia. It did not come as easily as her dominant scores in a maiden race and the Tempted.

On Saturday, Malathaat broke from the rail and was forced to stay inside while her stablemate Traffic Lane set the early pace of 23.69 seconds for the quarter and 48.50 for the half-mile before Millefeuille took over. Malathaat, meanwhile, was kept inside, first by Malibu Curl, then by Café Society.

“She was never comfortable, she was not running to a spot that I wanted her to,” Velazquez said. “Every time I tried to get to a spot I got pushed over again … She never put out that much effort to keep that spot.”

Leaving the quarter pole, Velazquez got her into the clear, but even then he wasn’t convinced he had enough horse to get to Millefeuille, who was three lengths clear at the eighth pole under Joel Rosario.

“When I got her out she put the ears up and she was by herself, she didn’t try very hard to get there,” Velazquez said. “Little by little she went to running.”

Rosario said his Millefeuille “lost focus a little bit” the last part of the race.

Malathaat, owned by Shadwell Stables, covered the 1 1/8 miles in 1:52.36 over a sealed sloppy track and returned $2.90 as the 2-5 favorite.

Malathaat gave Pletcher his sixth victory in the Demoiselle. In 2003, he won the Demoiselle with Ashado, who came back in 2004 to win the Kentucky Oaks.

Malathaat earned 10 qualifying points toward the April 30 Kentucky Oaks under the system used should more than 14 fillies enter the Oaks. Pletcher said Malathaat will spend the winter in South Florida and he and Shadwell will plot out a campaign to get to the Oaks. One race that could be in play is the Gulfstream Park Oaks, a race Dreaming of Julia won by 21 3/4 lengths in 2013.

“We felt like she was an Oaks caliber filly, she’s certainly done everything to back that up,” Pletcher said.