A slick gallop with a well-bred stablemate at The Valley on Monday morning has the team at Malua Racing confident Girl can take the step up to metropolitan racing at Sandown this Saturday.

The daughter of Zoustar went to the line locked together with Sana Ana Lane’s half-sister Fast Star after carving out the final 400m in 22.96 seconds, which confirmed Sandown’s $150,000 benchmark 70 for three-year-olds was the best option.

Leon and Troy Corstens have been specific in pin-pointing the right next target for the last-start Bendigo winner, who was scratched from The Valley last Friday night and was also an acceptor at Tuesday’s Hamilton meeting.

“We originally planned to run her last Friday in the 1200 fillies and mares but she drew off the track that night so we didn’t want to risk running her from a wide gate,” Malua Racing assistant trainer Dom Sutton said.

“We just decided to nom her around and we did think about going to Hamilton but she’s going pretty well, so we’re going to have a crack at a Saturday race with her and 1400 (metres) should suit.”

Girl broke maiden in impressive style at start number two at Bendigo, which followed a debut fourth placing at Ballarat.

“She’s come through that well and she’s getting better and better,” Sutton said.

“She’s still learning, she’s not the finished article but she’s definitely a promising filly.”

How Girl performs at Sandown could be a good pointer to the chances of Fast Star next Thursday at Kyneton.

Also by Zoustar, out of Santa Ana Lane’s dam Fast Fleet, Fast Star cruised home by 2-3/4 lengths in an Echuca maiden on July 29 at her only trip to the races and went to the line on terms with Girl at The Valley on Monday morning.

“This weekend is probably going to come up a bit quick for her, so we’ll probably just wait an extra week and go to Kyneton next Thursday,” Sutton said.

“She’s a handy filly and she’s obviously bred to be a nice horse. She’s already shown us she’s got good ability fingers crossed she can go on with it.”