Coastal Mission, thrilling winner of a hard-fought renewal of the Frank Whiteley Stakes last weekend at Laurel Park, won’t be in Saturday’s $75,000 Confucius Say at Charles Town Races. But pretty much all of the other major players in the local older horse division will be.

That includes morning line favorite Muad’dib (9-5), who is making the gradual climb towards millionaire status.

The Jeff Runco-trained Muad’dib was eclipsed atop the division late last year by stablemate Coastal Mission, a dominant winner of the $300,000 Sam Huff West Virginia Breeders’ Classic. But with that runner hunting bigger game out of town, this one can take a step towards reasserting divisional supremacy here.

David Raim’s Muad’dib has started his campaign in ideal fashion, winning back-to-back 6 ½-furlong allowance contests. In those races, he’s counted Social Chic, No Change, Remys Showtime, and Candy Invasion among his beaten foes. 

Regular pilot Arnaldo Bocachica will have the mount in the seven-furlong contest. Muad’dib, with 16 wins from 22 starts, has earned nearly $935,000.

The roster of runners Muad’dib has beaten recently is especially relevant, since all four are entered in the Confucius Say.

Stablemate Social Chic and No Change, trained and owned by Cyndy McKee, are co-second choices on the morning line. Both are 5-2.

Bocachica has gotten off Social Chic, whom Runco trains for Smart Angle LLP. Runco instead will instead have Angel Cruz in the irons. Social Chic ran in four state-bred stakes in 2023, finishing second or third in all of them, His top result came when second, beaten by less than a length by No Change, in the nine-furlong Randy Funkhouser Memorial Stakes last November.

This year Social Chic has run twice, winning an allowance Feb. 7 before finishing a half-length behind Muad’dib March 30 – when he was also three lengths ahead of No Change. 

Fifteen-time winner No Change is a one-two finish from a half-million dollars in career earnings. He began his season with a third-place finish as the favorite in the same March 30 allowance as Muad’dib and Social Chic.

That defeat snapped the three-race win streak he fashioned in the second half of last year. In succession, the now-six-year-old Fiber Sonde gelding won the Frank Gall Memorial Stakes, WVBC Onion Juice, and Funkhouser Memorial. In all three, Social Chic was the runner-up.

Regular rider Marshall Mendez will have the mount.

Those three runners are the only ones with single-digit morning lines. The Confucius Say is carded as the seventh on an eight-race program. Post time for the card is 7:00 p.m. EDT, with the Confucius Say slated for 10:02.

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