Stokes Puts Instant Celebrity On Notice
Instant Celebrity was an instant success during the spring of 2020, winning her first four career starts, including the Group 2 Thousand Guineas Prelude at Caulfield.
However, her first up run in the listed Redelva Stakes at Morphettville on April 17 was far from impressive, and left punters scratching their heads.
Phillip Stokes was on RSN on Friday morning and was asked if the filly was going as well as she was during the spring. Stokes gave a fairly blunt response to the question: “No.”
“If she comes out and blows them away in the Robert Sangster Stakes, then she’s back, but we’ve got to see that on race day.” Stokes added.
Stokes made mention that she has put two nice pieces of work and a strong run together since her run in the Redelva and coming down in the weights will help her chances, however Stokes is still lacking the confidence needed heading into a Group 1.
Her run in the Redelva Stakes may have been due to her racing up on speed for the first time in her career as the track at Morphettville tended to favour on-pace runners that day. Stokes went on to say that his star filly was giving away 4kg to the quinella across the line in her 2.2 length defeat first up.
Instant Celebrity will get Craig Williams back on board in Saturday afternoon’s Sangster Stakes. Williams rode the Not A Single Doubt filly in both her Melbourne starts, the Thousand Guineas Prelude, and then in the Thousand Guineas.
The Stokes-trained filly is a +550 favourite in an open version of the Robert Sangster Stakes. Stokes said that if Instant Celebrity does put in a stronger performance on Saturday then we may see her back up in The Goodwood in a fortnight’s time before getting tipped out for a break ahead of a big spring carnival in a few months time.