A prompt first winner for Beneteau

The clue to Beneteau’s first winner was there from the beginning, when a mare called Prompt delivered him on 3 August 2012.

He’s now called Prompt Return and on Saturday he became the first winner for the brilliant son of Redoute’s Choice, who died in January 2013, and has only two crops totalling 135 live foals to represent him.

Prompt Return started favourite in the Elmore 2YO Plate over 900 metres at Bendigo and won in convincing fashion by a length from Hello Hornsby and Stryking Love.

His dam Prompt is a daughter of Exceed and Excel and the good New Zealand racemare Amnesia whose race record includes nine Group & Listed Race placings and a fourth in Pace Invader’s 1998 CJC NZ 1000 Guineas G1. Prompt Return is the second of his dam’s two runners to win, after Caulfield juvenile winner Diamond Glow, also second to Miracles Of Life in the 2013 MRC Blue Diamond Preview LR.

Trainer Danny O’Brien said it was a “nice debut” for Prompt Return who was bred by Ron Hamer and sold from the Newgate Farm draft for $60,000 to Blue Sky Bloodstock at the 2014 Gold Coast Magic Millions Sale.  Hamer, who retained a share in Prompt Return to race him with Mark Sowerby, also has a yearling full sister to the colt.

Prompt Return’s victory came less than an hour after Beneteau’s very first runner, Swift Reply (ex Docherty Woods by Tale Of The Cat) ran fourth on debut at Randwick.

Beneteau (Redoute’s Choice-Slice of Paradise by Encosta de Lago) was sold by Arrowfield for $1 million to Blue Sky Thoroughbreds at the 2009 Inglis Easter Yearling Sale and, in the hands of trainer Paul Messara, quickly proved to be one of Australia’s most exciting juveniles.

After a sparkling debut win at Randwick in January 2010, he travelled to Melbourne to claim the MRC Blue Diamond Prelude G3 before finishing an unlucky third in the MRC Blue Diamond S. G1 and fifth in Crystal Lily’s Golden Slipper.

Beneteau joined the Arrowfield roster in 2011 and served 179 mares during his two seasons at stud.

As Blue Sky’s Julian Blaxland tweeted on Saturday, “It was great to be able to provide Blue Sky Bloodstock yearling grad Beneteau with his first winner as a sire with Magic Millions grad Prompt Return.”