Written by Richard Edmunds
A stylish debut performance by Conceited (Brazen Beau) at Flemington on Saturday has the Godolphin team eyeing back-to-back triumphs in the Magic Millions 2YO Classic.
Exhilarates (Snitzel) carried the all-blue colours to Magic Millions glory at the Gold Coast last January, and the powerful operation secured five new recruits through the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale that followed. One of them was Conceited, who was bought for $625,000 from the draft of Amarina Farm.
The big colt began his racing career in Saturday’s #LovetheHorse at Flemington. He made a shaky start, drifting sideways and colliding with a neighbouring runner, but from that point on he was highly impressive.
Ridden by Damian Lane, Conceited raced in third place before surging past the front-runners at the 250 metre mark.
He was strongly challenged by Jabali Ridge (Jabali), who clearly got his head in front, but Conceited fought back ferociously to snatch victory by a half-neck.
Lane was unable to pull Conceited up until he was well into the back straight.
“Until today he’d never been off the bridle, so you can see why he wanted to keep going,” he said.
“Until today he’d never been off the bridle, so you can see why he wanted to keep going." - Damian Lane
“He’s really improved. I rode him in his first jumpout, where he went well, but I hadn’t seen him since then. When he walked into the mounting yard here today, you could tell he’s really turned into a racehorse over these last few weeks.”
Damian Lane returning to scale aboard Conceited
Godolphin’s Melbourne foreman Sean Keogh indicated that the Magic Millions 2YO Classic on January 11 is on the radar for the James Cummings-trained colt.
“It would be fantastic if we could win it two years in a row,” he said. “This is a big, scopey horse who’s obviously got a bit of natural talent there.
“He was headed and passed, and it was really good to see him come back again and win it.”
Keogh credited Godolphin’s New South Wales team for the preparatory work done with Conceited through the early part of the spring.
Conceited
“He only came down here about a month ago,” he said. “The guys at Crown Lodge in Sydney did a great job preparing him.
“He’s had a couple of jumpouts here. James elected to put the blinkers on for his second trial, and he showed us nice speed in that trial. We thought he’d be good enough to be racing here today.
"He showed us nice speed in that trial. We thought he’d be good enough to be racing here today." - Sam Keogh
“Being a big, scopey horse, we worried that 1100 metres down the straight might not quite suit him today, but he showed his class there.
“Darley’s young stallion Brazen Beau has produced some nice, precocious 2-year-olds in the past, and this horse looks like another one.”
From two Southern Hemisphere crops and one in the north, Brazen Beau has sired 36 winners from 100 runners to date. He has six individual stakes winners, headed by Pretty Brazen in the G2 Sandown Guineas and Colada in the G2 Stan Fox S.
Conceited is the first winner from two foals to race for Classy Chloe (Danerich), who herself won seven races including the Listed Durbridge S.
