Roving Angel out to bounce back

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - The once-beaten Roving Angel will try to rebound from the drubbing she took in the Grade 2 Astarita when she starts Sunday in the $136,875 Glorious Song Stakes, a seven-furlong race for 2-year-old fillies.

Roving Angel defeated the talented Victorious Ami when she won her debut in August, but she was scratched at the gate when in against males in the Sept. 6 Silver Deputy Stakes. Four days later, she won a six-furlong allowance in a romp,

and then captured the Finger Lakes Juvenile Filly Stakes by 7 1/4 lengths.

"She's always done everything we've asked of her," said trainer Bobby Pion. "It was no surprise that she won her first start.

Pion said he liked Roving Angel's chances in the Silver Deputy, but she was scratched when Accountforthegold "jumped on top of her in the gate and hit her."

"We came back in that allowance, and she won pretty impressively," he said. "Then, I had nowhere to run her here. The race at Finger Lakes was a fill-in - it wasn't all that tough."

Roving Angel finished a well-beaten fourth in the Oct. 17 Astarita at Belmont. Pion said he was unhappy with the ride she got in that 6 1/2-furlong stakes.

"I didn't get the ride I thought I would get," Pion said. "She broke sharp," but jockey Cornelio Velasquez "snatched her back, and I didn't want her to be taken back. I wanted her to be about a length off the lead. Turning for home, she spit it out. I scratched that race, and we just went on to the next project, which is the Glorious Song. I think seven-eighths will be perfect for her."

Eurico Rosa da Silva has the mount Sunday on Roving Angel.

Among the other contenders in the seven-horse field are stakes winners Quite a Ruckus and Kathern's Cat.

Quite a Ruckus, trained by Mark Casse, won her debut here in the July 4 My Dear Stakes, before ending up second against males in the Colin Stakes. She was a fading fifth when she returned from a layoff in an Oct. 29 allowance at Keeneland.

Trainer Reade Baker sent Kathern's Cat to Edmonton's Northlands Park for the Oct. 9 Freedom of the City Stakes, which she won comfortably going a mile on the dirt.