Who says MySpace is dead? Kristin Mulhall might not be running Westwood Pride in the $250,000 Matriarch on Friday at Hollywood Park if website designers Rustin and Juliana Kretz hadn’t come across the trainer’s page on the Avis of social networks. At least, that’s how Mulhall got the story, confessing as well that she had not updated the info for about four years. But the timing could not have been more perfect. Two days after she was contacted by the prospective owners and given a shopping budget, Mulhall got wind of a filly for sale in Florida, where she had just broken her maiden for a $32,000 tag. The source was solid and the price was right, but for the money there had to be something amiss. Fortunately, it had nothing to do with the way Westwood Pride runs. Mulhall was warned that the filly wasn’t the cutest kid in class. In fact, she was downright plain. No one went “ooh” or “ahh” when she stepped off the van in California last June. “Honestly,” said Mulhall, “she’s probably the worst-looking horse in my barn. But she is very tough. And normally it‘s those little tiny fillies who are the tough ones, and the big gorgeous fillies can‘t run a jump.” Mulhall gets to talk that way about the Thoroughbreds in her care, because no one adores her animals more than the second-generation trainer, who is also an accomplished show horse rider. At 28, she already has established a reputation as one of the game’s best caretakers. Anyway, by rights Westwood Pride should have been one of the lookers. Her sire, Pleasantly Perfect, was a handsome beast at the track and is a picture at stud. But in horse racing, it’s pretty is as pretty does, and by those rules, Westwood Pride is a knockout. She has done nothing but fire time after time, with two wins and three seconds in her five West Coast starts. It was her near-miss to the front-running Briecat in the Las Palmas Handicap last time out that gave her a right to tackle the Matriarch. Like the Las Palmas, the Matriarch is run at a mile on the grass, although that is where the similarity ends. The field on Friday includes Special Duty, the French-trained filly who backed into a pair of classic wins this year on disqualifications, as well as Wasted Tears, Del Mar’s John C. Mabee winner whose perfect 2010 season was only slightly derailed last time out in the First Lady at Keeneland. Stir in the accomplished South African mare Gypsy’s Warning and the redoubtable Lilly Fa Pootz, and this version of the Matriarch comes up tough enough for anyone’s taste. Whether or not this year’s winner stacks up with the likes of Ventura, Intercontinental, Starine and Tout Charmant from the decade’s renewals remains to be seen. If the past is any indication, the Matriarch winner was usually already a hot commodity by the time she won the race, as names like Royal Heroine, Kilijaro, Flawlessly, Sangue, and Exchange attest. Still, there is always room for some four-legged Eve Harrington to step out from behind the curtain and shine. As far as Mulhall is concerned, Westwood Pride probably has been overachieving all her life. “With the little ones, it might start in the field as babies,” Mulhall said. “They get picked on and pushed around a lot, and that can make them just really, really tough.” This also could have something to do with the fact that Westwood Pride has yet to develop the kind of outgoing personality Mulhall’s horses are known to exhibit. “Every horse in my barn is spoiled rotten,” said Mulhall, who is best known to a national audience for her handling of Imperialism, the versatile stretch-runner and third-place finisher in the 2004 Kentucky Derby. “They all have their heads out,” Mulhall went on. “They eat carrots, eat mints. I cannot get Westwood Pride to eat a thing from me, which drives us nuts, because she‘s the one we really want to spoil. At least when her owners visit she’ll put her head down and let you pet her forever.” After a quiet couple of years, the Mulhall stable is enjoying a renaissance in 2010, highlighted by an Oak Tree meet at Hollywood Park during which her runners won seven races from just 12 starts. Her season’s total stands at 24 wins from 110 starts. Besides Westwood Pride, the stable is sparked by the reliable sprinter Square Deal, owned in part by the Kretzes, who was going for his third straight win while facing Cost of Freedom and EZ’s Gentleman in the Vernon O. Underwood at Hollywood Park on Thanksgiving Day. Just last weekend, Mulhall sent out the Cherokee Run colt Industry Leader to finish a solid second in the Prevue Stakes, setting him up for a possible start in the CashCall Futurity. It is the Matriarch, however, which offers the real jewel in the Hollywood Park fall crown of events. “This is an ambitious jump, I know,” Mulhall said of Westwood Pride. “It’s tough, but the field is small, and a mile on the grass is definitely her best distance. Getting a piece of a Grade 1 race like this would be great.” And if she doesn’t, it won’t be because the little scrapper didn’t try.