Unit testing validation with express-validator

How can I unit test my validations that are done using express-validator?

I have tried creating a dummy request object, but I get the error: TypeError: Object #<Object> has no method 'checkBody'. I am able to manually test that the validation works in the application.

Here is what I have tried:

describe('couponModel', function () {
    it('returns errors when necessary fields are empty', function(done){
        var testBody = {
            merchant : '',
            startDate : '',
            endDate : ''
        };
        var request = {
            body : testBody
        };
        var errors = Model.validateCouponForm(request);
        errors.should.not.be.empty;
        done();
    });
});

My understanding is that the checkBody method is added to the request object when I have app.use(expressValidator()) in my express application, but as I am only testing that the validation is working in this unit test I do not have an instance of the express application available, and the validation method that I am testing is not called directly from it anyway as it is only called through a post route, which I do not want to call for a unit test as it involves a database operation.