Bohemian Angel experienced a false start last week, but the four-year-old mare is slated to make her debut for Phillip Stokes this Saturday at Murray Bridge.
The mare, previously trained by Peter Moody and Katherine Coleman, was accepted for a 1000-metre race at last Saturday’s Morphettville Parks meeting. However, the stable opted to postpone her first run for the new yard until this weekend.
Stokes’ son and assistant trainer, Tommy, expressed satisfaction with the decision. He noted that their highly-rated stablemate Tobikko was narrowly defeated by Bardigrub, and Bohemian Angel will now race against her own sex in this weekend’s benchmark 64 event over 1100 metres.
“We had her in at the Parks track but she drew wide,” Stokes stated. “Plus, we had another horse in it that went good, we just try to avoid that (clashing), and wanted to make sure she’s ready to fire first-up.”
An added advantage of delaying Bohemian Angel’s stable debut is that she will encounter a heavy track, a condition Stokes is confident she will perform well on.
The daughter of Harry Angel’s sole public appearance for the Stokes stable thus far was a 900-metre Traralgon jumpout on June 16, where she outpaced classy stablemate Snow Mercy.
“We wanted to see her in trial conditions before we had a real opinion of her and we sent her to Traralgon a couple of weeks ago and she trialled up really good from off the speed,” Stokes explained. “It was probably a Heavy 8 that day and she handled it perfectly and beat a horse that’s won a Group 3 in Snow Mercy. The trial form is good, her trackwork at home has been really good and I think it’s just the perfect race.”
Bohemian Angel, with Will Price in the saddle, was listed as the second favourite at $4.80 on Friday morning, trailing the lightly-raced Victorian filly Restless Wind ($4.40).
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