The Listed MRC Galilee Final (2400m) at Sandown on Saturday is a race often used by three year-olds with South Australian Derby aspirations and this year’s winner Bengal Boy is set to follow the trend.
The Matt Cumani trained gelding was having his sixth start and ended a frustrating run of minor placings when producing a good tough staying effort to hold on and win by a head over Midnight Glow.
He was wide all the way and stuck to his guns in tenacious style for Billy Egan to earn a shot at even better races with this maiden victory.
Matt Cumani has trained a couple of Derby place-getters in the past and would dearly love to emulate the success of his father Luca, who has trained two winners of the Epsom Derby.
"A Derby is what we've always been aiming for," Cumani said.
"The South Australian Derby, we've come third in it before and are yet to win one.
"A Derby is a race my father did very well in and I'd like to do it. We'll start with the SA Derby and hopefully this horse is the right horse for it."
Bengal Boy was a $280,000 Inglis Classic purchase from the Holbrook Thoroughbreds draft for Cumani Racing / Boomer Bloodstock and runs in the OTI Racing colours.
Bred by Holbrook Thoroughbreds, he is the best of three winners from six to race from winning Nadeem mare Bengal Angel, who has no Black Type in her immediate family, but when you get back a bit her fourth dam is Tilly Foster, the grand-dam of Derby and Oaks winners Blackfriars and Larrocha with another Australian Derby winner in Quick Thinker also on the page.
Bengal Boy is the 24th stakes-winner for Arrowfield Stud’s Dundeel, who has been riding high this season with outstanding two year-old colt Militarize, who on Saturday added the Group I ATC Champagne Stakes win to his earlier victory in the Group I ATC Sires Produce Stakes.
