Mick Price has decided to bypass a home-track run for BlueBlood Thoroughbred’s Group 1 mare Secret Agenda, who will now take on fellow elite mare Viddora on her home patch in Adelaide this Saturday.
Price initially favoured keeping Secret Agenda at home for the Bel Esprit Stakes at Caulfield but he said on Wednesday that he felt the float trip to Adelaide will help rather than hinder the mare as she builds towards a defence of her Robert Sangster Stakes in Adelaide early next month.
“She’s a good traveller and I just felt the trip away will help bring her on and she did come up with the inside gate,” Price explained.
“She’s gone to Sydney and won off the truck and she’s done the same in Adelaide and look, she hasn’t raced for 29 days and this will help tighten her up with an eye to going back for the Group 1 in two weeks.”
Set to be ridden by Dom Tourneur in the G3 Irwin Stakes over 1100m, Secret Agenda hasn’t raced since finishing well back in last month’s G1 William Reid Stakes but Price said he has been more than happy with the way the mare has bounced back in her work.
Secret Agenda’s scratching leaves a field of 12 for the Bel Esprit Stakes over 1100m, with the G1 winner Santa Ana Lane now heading the weights for the Listed race.