The $350,000 Group II MRC Blue Diamond Prelude (1100m) at Caulfield on Saturday had a hot favourite in My Gladiola, who was looking to repeat her brilliant debut victory in the Group III MRC Blue Diamond Preview last month, but she came up short when overpowered by Starspangledbanner filly Palm Angel.
Trained by Jason Warren and ridden by Ethan Brown, Palm Angel won the Listed MRC Merson Cooper Stakes on debut last spring and was then fifth behind My Gladiola when resuming from a spell, but bounced out of that run to produce a new career best performance.
My Gladiola drew wide and went forward to lead and gave a good kick at the 200m, but when Palm Angel angled out of her slipstream, she surged past the grey to win by a length with Wootton Bassett (GB) filly Wiltshire Square racking up her third stakes placing from three starts.
Palm Angel has won two of three starts banking $336,600 in prizemoney and will head to the Group I MRC Blue Diamond Stakes giving every impression 1200m will suit her event better.
"We went into her first-up run in the Preview a little bit soft, we'd gone there with one jumpout under our belt with a view that our Grand Final was still six weeks away,” Jason Warren revealed.
"So, we used the run to bring her on. The barrier draw last start forced the issue, so we didn't knock her around and felt that we came here much improved and I think we can tighten up a little bit further into the Grand Final in two weeks.”
Ethan Brown has ridden Palm Angel in all three of her starts and is full of praise for the talented chestnut.
"She's got a great constitution, she's a little racehorse,” he said.
"She did have a soft run from the gate, she dropped the bit nicely, but once she got off My Gladiola's back she really sprinted down well.
"I only hit her once or twice, she did the rest herself, and it was quite a soft win."
"The ability to deal with pressure and she does that just fine.
"She put the writing on the wall her first start and she ran well the other day but I said to Jase, 'you've got to just trust she's going to improve out of this run', and she certainly did.
"She was prepared in terrific order by Jase and the team and I'm just rapt to be on her."
Palm Angel is a half-sister to stakes-placed Narbold and is the second winner from three to race from blue-blood Pivotal mare Noblest (GB), a winning sister to dual Group I winning miler Peeress, the grand-dam of this year’s Group I Newbury Lockinge Stakes winner Audience as well as Group III winners Esquire and Dark Lady.
Noblest was bought by Rosemont Stud at the 2016 Arqana December Breeding Stock Sale for 125,000 euros.
Palm Angel is by outstanding sire Starspangledbanner, who covered Noblest again in 2023 resulting in another filly born on August 28 last year and she is now in foal to another of the Coolmore sires in Churchill (IRE).
Palm Angel is the third stakes-winner for Starspangledbanner from a daughter of Pivotal joining Northern Hemisphere bred Spangled and also Aussie Group II winner Brooklyn Hustle, who was also bred and raced by Rosemont Stud.
