Glamour colt ‘Beneteau’ made an encouraging start to his autumn campaign yesterday winning his trial with ease at Randwick.
Trainer of Beneteau, Paul Messara, was happy with the colt’s progress after sustaining a back injury in the middle of last year.”There was nothing flashy about the time but he did what he had to do after settling about fourth”, trainer Paul Messara said.
Ridden by Corey Brown, Beneteau clocked 1:03.3 for the 1050m heat, beating maiden gallopers ‘Money Tree’ and ‘Savodara’. After sitting wide for most of the trial, Beneteau strolled up to the leaders at the 200 metres winning comfortably at the line. Messara said the ‘Redoute’s Choice’ colt would trial again before starting his run towards potential autumn riches.”I haven’t picked out a race yet, he’ll trial again in a fortnight and I’ll go from there”.
Beneteau started favourite in last year’s Group 1 Blue Diamond Stakes before running on impressively from the rear of the field to finish third. The colt then headed to Sydney where was a close up fifth behind ‘Crystal Lily’ in the Group 1 Golden Slipper, before finishing sixth to ‘Skilled’ in the Champagne Stakes.
In other news from yesterdays trials, Gai Waterhouse runners dominated the session winning 15 of the 17 heats, with the Graeme Rogerson-trained ‘Shootoff’ the only other non-Waterhouse trial winner.
Top class mare ‘More Joyous’ was among the high-profile Waterhouse gallopers to show their wares, running second to stablemate ‘Montana Flyer’ who led throughout.
Written by Isaac Chaplin
