WENDY ROCHE believes in second chances - it's one of the many reasons she has spent the past eight months of her life rehabilitating Here De Angels, reports the Sydney Morning Herald. It says: All her work with the former star sprinter will come to a head behind the barriers for Wednesday's Ramornie Handicap at Grafton. For Here De Angels, a barrier rogue, the moments before the race will be the most defining. Roche started the job of returning Here De Angels to the track by building a set of st

WENDY ROCHE believes in second chances - it's one of the many reasons she has spent the past eight months of her life rehabilitating Here De Angels, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.

It says: All her work with the former star sprinter will come to a head behind the barriers for Wednesday's Ramornie Handicap at Grafton. For Here De Angels, a barrier rogue, the moments before the race will be the most defining. Roche started the job of returning Here De Angels to the track by building a set of stalls in a yard to reduce his fear of the starting gates.

"It wasn't easy," Roche said. "[But] I'm pretty determined when I start something that I finish it."

The former equestrian rider is living on a second chance of her own. She was in line for a spot on the 2000 Olympics team when a stray horse ran over the top of her. "I was basically dead," Roche said. "I don't remember much about it." It has been a long way back - via a barramundi farm in north Queensland, which Roche still owns - but she eventually returned to horses and training. She prepares a team of seven horses.

Along with partner John Crowley, the vet for Takeover Target, Roche bought Here De Angels for $82,000 after the sprinter was banned from racing because of his barrier manners.Here De Angels, the winner of 11 of his 31 starts, holds some of the strongest form references in Australian racing. Three starts ago, when trained by Mark Kavanagh, he was a luckless second to Starspangledbanner in last year's Oakleigh Plate, a preparation that included a runner-up finish behind Black Caviar, beaten only by 2 lengths.