Mashallah faces her sternest test in Raven Run Stakes

It took 13 months from the time she was purchased for $1.25 million at a 2-year-old auction for Mashallah to debut, and seven months after her debut, we’re still waiting to see how real it was.

On Beyer Speed Figures, Mashallah’s first start was “historic” – so said Andrew Beyer himself in a short article penned for Daily Racing Form contextualizing the 106 Beyer that Mashallah’s 3 1/2-length maiden sprint score yielded. No first-time starter since 2012 had earned a figure as high. And, Beyer went on, 17 of the 19 horses who had debuted with a figure that high had subsequently earned at least one more triple-digit Beyer.

Mashallah has since yet to better 96, but after a second-out flub in a Churchill allowance race she has won three in a row by a combined 17 1/2 lengths. Trainer Brendan Walsh has incrementally stepped Mashallah up in class, and Saturday at Keeneland she faces her toughest test in the Grade 2, $400,000 Raven Run.

There’s chaff in the group, but the seven-furlong Raven Run attracted 12 entrants, and that alone will feel unusual to Mashallah. She beat five foes in her debut, four in a Saratoga first-level allowance win, six in the Tyson Gilpin at Colonial, and just four last out making her graded stakes debut in the Grade 3 Prioress, also at Saratoga.

Mashallah got a perfect pressing trip winning the six-furlong Prioress, but that’s because the filly possesses rateable speed and a strong finish. The latter was on full display in an Oct. 2 workout at Keeneland, where Walsh put Mashallah behind two breeze partners. Mashallah stormed past them with a sharp turn of foot at the furlong grounds.

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On paper, no horse drawn inside Mashallah – who breaks from post 9 under Tyler Gaffalione – has her gate speed, and she could wind up with the rail and the lead, though not an easy lead. Movie Night breaks from post 11, has as much early gas as Mashallah, and, despite being 9-2 to Mashallah’s 8-5 on the morning line, is the more battle-hardened filly.

Movie Night also debuted this past spring at Keeneland, making some standard first-time-starter mistakes that cost her a couple of lengths in a hot maiden race. She won her next two by wide margins and had a very tough trip – an impossible one, really – when badly beaten at 2-1 in the Grade 1 Test. Movie Night rebounded mightily last out in the Dogwood at Churchill, where she fought tooth and nail from the three-eighths pole with Test winner Explora before winding up on the wrong end of a three-horse blanket finish, just a head behind the vaunted Explora.

“That was a heartbreaking loss in an extremely taxing race,” said Will Walden, who trains Movie Night for WinStar Farm. “I thought, to be honest, it would have taken more out of her apparently than it has. She’s trained really good out of the race.”

Flavien Prat rides Movie Night for the first time since her last win, and Walden sees Prat making the most of the filly’s favorable draw outside Mashallah.

“You’re talking about one of the best and most savvy riders in the game,” Walden said.

While Explora and Movie Night battled, Conceit sat third behind them, making a run at the eighth pole that propelled her to a head victory over Explora.

“I’d say both fillies going head and head in front of her, we needed that to happen,” said Conceit’s trainer, Brad Cox.

Conceit, a Juddmonte homebred, bloomed this year when switched from synthetic and turf racing to dirt. She’s won all three of her sophomore starts, gets the services of Irad Ortiz Jr. on Saturday, and remains a horse still capable of improving.

“I think so. She’s a very good filly to deal with, honest, shows up every time,” Cox said.

Army’s Marauder, Coco Connect, and Yo Fancy seem out of their depth, while Mashallah buried Mythical and Hen Party in the Prioress. Percy’s Bar has some quality but doesn’t appear to have moved forward since she won the Grade 1 Ashland in April at Keeneland. Conceit beat A Fine Chardonnay by less than a length at Ellis Park this summer, but A Fine Chardonnay couldn’t keep up in the Dogwood.

That leaves With a Kiss and Star Actress, who ran one-two, separated by a neck, in a first-level sprint allowance Sept. 6 at Saratoga. Star Actress had run in six straight routes and looked comfortable cutting back to 6 1/2 furlongs, but With a Kiss beat her a measured neck while making only her second start, and first in 11 months. A grand-looking filly with a royal pedigree, With a Kiss oozes talent. Her top Beyer falls 20 points short of Mashallah’s. Maybe she’s fast enough anyway.

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