Say short prayer outside a US state court for finely balanced contest (3-3-5,4)
I believe the answer is:
egg-and-spoon race
'say short prayer outside' is the definition.
The definition suggests a singular noun which matches the answer.
'a us state court for finely balanced contest' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'a' could be 'an' and 'an' is present in the answer.
'contest' could be 'race' (race is a kind of contest) and 'race' is present in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for egg-and-spoon race that I've seen is " Handicapped running contest".)