The classy Egyptian Mau, a R425 000 buy from the 2022 National Yearling Sale, showed her class when she won the G3 Belmont Turf Sprint Stakes at Belmont Park on Thursday.
The daughter of Fire Away made a mockery of her 31-1 starting price with a convincing display on Thursday.
An almost six-month layoff and facing males could not stop 6-year-old mare Egyptian Mau from winning her first U.S. graded stakes in the $200,000 feature. The Neil Drysdale trainee posted a 31-1 upset for her first graded stakes win since the 2023 G3 HSH Princess Charlene Starling Stakes in her native South Africa.
Breaking from post 4 under Antonio Fresu, Egyptian Mau rated in sixth behind the leaders on the rail through a quarter-mile in :23.19 and a half-mile in :45.83. Still fifth in the stretch, Fresu and Egyptian Mau took advantage of a gap on rail to run down second-choice Walaro for a neck score.
The mare has now won four of 15 starts, with Egyptian Mau having also claimed an allowance optional claiming race at Santa Anita Park last October.
Bred by Wilgerbosdrift & Mauritzfontein, Egyptian Mau races for Team Valor International.
The mare, a half-sister to G3 Godolphin Barb Stakes winner Cymric, was produced by the winning Fort Wood mare Savannah Cat, herself a record setting filly of her generation at the National Yearling Sale, where she sold for R4,750 000 in 2015. She was trained by Duncan Howells.
The latter, in turn, is a half-sister to G3 Kings Cup winner Bulleting Home and hails from the same family as multiple champion sire Western Winter.
