Arrowfield Stud's ill-fated Beneteau sits on top of the Australian First Season
Sires List with six runners to date for one winner, but that winner is very
smart colt Prompt Return.A winner at each of his two starts, the Danny O'Brien trained colt took the Group III VRC Maribyrnong Plate last Saturday at Flemington and looks set for a lucrative season.
Beneteau is poised to keep up the good work this Saturday with four runners – two in the Listed MRC Merson Cooper Stakes at Sandown in Jaqueric and Boomgal, one at Rosehill in Swift Reply and one at the Gold Coast in It's Vegas Baby.
Jaqueric comes out of the Maribyrnong Plate, having finished a handy fourth to Prompt Return after doing quite a bit wrong, while Boomgal will look to improve on her unplaced debut behind Antelucan in the Group III fillies race at Flemington on Cup Day.
Fourth on debut at Randwick last month, Swift Reply is one of only two runners in the open juvenile event at Rosehill to have raced and as a $40,000 Inglis Classic purchase will be looking to remain in work for the lucrative Inglis incentive races for juveniles over the summer.
First starter It's Vegas Baby will be partnered by Chris Munce and is sporting blinkers for his debut so might be well tuned for a good performance and as a $65,000 Magic Millions purchase, his trainer Bradley Hearne no doubt has his eyes on the big prize in January.
So it's a weekend bristling with promise for Beneteau, who died last year and has just one crop of yearlings left to come which will be sold in 2015.
Those yearlings come from a fairly small foal crop of just 49 youngsters, seven of which have been catalogued for the 2015 Magic Millions. Click here to see them.
As a Group III winning son of Redoute's Choice from a stakes-placed sister to champion filly Alinghi, Beneteau had a stallion's pedigree if not the required Group I win on the board, so his early success is not entirely unexpected.
