Bennett Racing 3yo filly Fireball Miss overcame a 3 wide trip to brilliantly win the $700,000 Group I BRC Queensland Oaks (2200m) at Eagle Farm on Saturday and in doing so became Bennett Racings 3rd individual Gr1 winner ! The race saw last start G1 Australasian Oaks winner Panova trying to enhance her record further, but she came up short when going down by a length and a quarter to Bennett Racing’s progressive filly Fireball Miss.
Trained by Ciaron Maher and ridden by Declan Bates, Fireball Miss has been the form filly of the Brisbane Winter Carnival showing improvement with every run. Fourth in the Listed BRC Princess Stakes and third in the Listed Gold Coast Bracelet, she flagged her staying potential when winning the Group II BRC Roses Stakes (2000m).
The daughter of Bivouac had to extend another furlong to win the Oaks, but she made it look easy, cruising to the front with a furlong to run and holding off the challenge from Panova to claim victory.
The decision to bypass the Adelaide carnival and focus on Brisbane with Fireball Miss has reaped the ultimate reward with the filly scoring a brilliant Group One win in the Queensland Oaks at Eagle Farm. The three-year-old was explosive, rounding up the leaders and bounding clear to score by 1-1/4 lengths. In doing so, Fireball Miss added her name to an elite list at Eagle Farm on Saturday, joining Ethereal, Scarlett Lady and Youngstar in becoming just the fourth filly to win The Roses-Queensland Oaks double., Maher crediting the result with their decision to bring her north early after she finished out of the placings in the Kembla Grange Classic (1600m) in March.
“It’s a super result. The Bennett Racing team pick really nice horses, they’ve got a great record and I’m thrilled to train for them. This filly has really thrived up here at Tony and Cav’s place, so I can’t thank them enough. It was a brilliant ride by Dec, we were very confident today and she’s got the job done,” said Ciaron Maher. “Year in year out, if you target a race like this with a filly like this you can get the right result. We had the option of going to Adelaide, but we thought we’d put her on ice and bring her up here. “You can see how well she looks, and I think she’s a filly for the future. She had a pretty sweet run and you can see what a beautiful action she’s got. When she matures fully she’s going to be a nice mare.”
Declan Bates has ridden Fireball Miss in her past three starts and was thrilled to take the prize in her grand final. “I actually wasn’t super happy in the run. She began OK but it was a little bit messy and she didn’t relax as well as she normally does. When you’re stepping out to 2200 metres, you really need them to switch off but she never felt like she was fully relaxed,” he said. “It didn’t matter, because she just built through her gears and put them away. So she’s a nice filly and she’s very much on the up. She’s clearly got a good engine.”
Fireball Miss was a $140,000 Inglis Easter purchase from Vinery Stud for Bennett Racing and has the overall record of three wins from seven starts, including her last start Gr2 Roses victory at Doomben, with prizemoney just shy of $680,000. A half-sister to group I SA Derby winner Femminile, she was bred by Simon Delzoppo’s Aralet Pty Ltd and is the second foal and second Group I winner from stakes-placed Pierro mare Femme Fireball, a half-sister to Group III winner Rock. Fireball Miss dam Femme Fireball is by Pierro, who is a noted sire of classic horses and also an emerging force as a broodmare sire with 11 SW’s in this department that also include dual G1 winner Jacquinot. Fireball Miss traces back to fourth dam Credit Account, a G1 winner in WA and the overall pedigree for Fireball Miss features a triple cross of Danehill 3 x 5 x 4. Nothing about this pedigree screams stamina and Fireball Miss will more than likely find her sweet spot as an older mare around the mile to 2000m trip
Femme Fireball was sold at the Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale last year for $900,000 to Boomer Bloodstock (FBAA) /Paul Willetts Bloodstock and is now with Three Bridges Thoroughbreds and produced a filly for them last spring by Anamoe. That filly has been entered for the Inglis Great Southern Weanling Sale next week as Lot 406. Also at MM National last year, Femminile sold for $1.5million to Yulong and was covered by Lucky Vega (IRE) in her first season at stud, so there is quite a bit going on in this family which has made Fireball Miss an outstanding investment for her owners!
Congratulations to all owners in Fireball Miss and a big thankyou to Ciaron Maher and his Team for the superb job they have done with the filly in her first prep.