Bohemian Angel had a false start last week, but the four-year-old mare will make her debut for Phillip Stokes this Saturday at Murray Bridge.
The former Peter Moody and Katherine Coleman-trained mare was an acceptor for a 1000-metre race at last Saturday’s Morphettville Parks meeting but the stable elected to hold off for this weekend.
Stokes’ son and assistant trainer Tommy said they were glad they did, with highly-rated stablemate Tobikko pipped by Bardigrub and she gets to race against her own sex in this weekend’s benchmark 64 over 1100m.
“We had her in at the Parks track but she drew wide,” Stokes said.
“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.”
The bonus in putting off Bohemian Angel’s stable debut is that she will strike a heavy track, which Stokes is confident she will relish.
The daughter of Harry Angel’s only public appearance for the Stokes stable was a 900m Traralgon jumpout on June 16, in which she ran down 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 said.
“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, who will be ridden by Will Price, held down the $4.80 second line of betting on Friday morning behind lightly-raced Victorian filly Restless Wind ($4.40).
