Mary Shan beats hot favourite El Vencedor in Great Northern Challenge Stakes at Ellerslie

Mary Shan has always been a good horse and was perfectly suited by the weight scale in the Bayleys Challenge Stakes at Ellerslie on Saturday. Photo / Kenton Wright

Black-type success has always seemed to be a matter of when and not if for highly talented mare Mary Shan, but few would have expected it to come at the expense of a $1.50 favourite and reigning New Zealand Horse of the Year.

That was exactly what happened in the Group 3 Bayleys Great Northern Challenge Stakes (1600m) at Ellerslie on Saturday, as Mary Shan flew out of the pack to bomb El Vencedor right on the finish line and reinforce the fact that there is no such thing as a certainty in racing.

Going into Saturday’s $120,000 set weights and penalties feature, Mary Shan could have laid claim to the title of New Zealand’s best horse in training without a win at stakes level. She had won four of her 21 starts and more than $400,000 in stakes, and she had been runner-up in no fewer than four black-type races – behind Impendabelle in the Group 2 Soliloquy Stakes (1400m), Molly Bloom in the Group 2 Eight Carat Classic (1600m), Khafre in the Listed Matamata Cup (1600m) and Orchestral in the Listed Aotearoa Classic (1600m).

On Saturday the Andrew Forsman-trained mare finally broke through, and she did it in superb style.

Jockey Craig Grylls took up a perfect midfield position in fifth as El Vencedor assumed his usual role at the head of affairs. The favourite had company in the form of Major Major, who lingered on his outside and put the pressure on coming down the side of the track.

El Vencedor shook free of that rival before the home turn and appeared to have the race at his mercy in the straight, but Mary Shan had other ideas. Grylls moved her through her gears and unleashed her down the outside, suddenly eating into El Vencedor’s margin with giant strides.

Mary Shan drew up alongside El Vencedor in the final 50m and collared him in the shadows of the post, snatching victory by a head. There was another short neck back to third-placed Nereus.

“It’s great for this mare to get a black-type win,” Grylls said. “She’s been knocking on the door so many times, so it’s thoroughly deserved. Well done to Andrew and all the connections.

“I rode her quite a bit earlier on in her career, but hadn’t sat on her for a while until today. The race panned out perfectly and we settled exactly where I wanted to be.

“There was good speed coming down the side of the track and they stretched us out a bit, but she was always travelling well.

“I was pretty confident from about 200m out and I really felt like we were going to catch El Vencedor. She balanced up and just built up all the momentum and then hit the line very strongly.”

Mary Shan has now had 22 starts for five wins, six placings and $482,290 in stakes for owners Jackie Rogers and Gerald Shand. The Almanzor mare has won three of her four starts so far in her five-year-old season, with the only defeat coming in the Group 3 Taranaki Breeders’ Stakes (1400m) on a Heavy 9 track.

“That very heavy track has been her only blip in this preparation,” Forsman’s racing manager Joe Walker said. “She’s going super.

“We had a very good one to beat today, catching El Vencedor is a tough task on a track that he loves, but she was brilliant.

“We thought she was going well at home leading into this, her work had been super, and in the end it all worked out beautifully.

“She’s won really well today and we’ll get her home now and assess where we go from here. But the Rich Hill Mile (Group 2, 1600m) on New Year’s Day is the one race we’d pencilled in beyond this.”

Forsman Racing paid $180,000 to buy Mary Shan from the Prima Park draft in Book 1 of Karaka 2022. Wentwood Grange will offer a full-brother to Mary Shan at Karaka 2026, catalogued as Lot 114 during the Book 1 session.

– LOVERACING.NZ News Desk