PEDIGREE SPOTLIGHT BY TONY MORRIS
ZAMINDAR
Just a couple of months ago it seemed that ZAMINDAR
might be the sire of the three best three-year-old fillies in
France. Cinnamon Bay had won a Chantilly Listed event in
spectacular fashion, Coquerelle had achieved Group 1 status through
her victory in the Prix Saint-Alary, and Darjina had preserved her
unbeaten record by thwarting Finsceal Beo’s bid for a second
Classic triumph in the Poule d’Essai des Pouliches.
Of course, nothing stays the same for long in a competitive
environment like top-level Thoroughbred racing, and all three
fillies suffered setbacks in June. Two failed in the Prix de Diane,
Cinnamon Bay running way below her best in tenth place, while
Coquerelle was so severely compromised by the prevailing fast
ground that she was virtually pulled up. Darjina met defeat for the
first time in different circumstances at Royal Ascot, far from
disgraced as third to the soft ground specialist Indian Ink in a
soggy edition of the Coronation Stakes.
The pair who failed in the Chantilly Classic now have some work
to do to restore their reputations, and in suitable conditions they
may yet do so. Darjina, meanwhile, is safely back on her pedestal
as the leading French distaff miler of her generation after her
game victory in Sunday’s Prix d’Astarte at Deauville, where
England’s dual Group 1 heroine Simply Perfect was well held in
third place. Whatever the rest of the season discloses, it is
already clear that ZAMINDAR’s status has been dramatically
enhanced after that sticky period when injury curtailed his
activity in 2000 – only one foal resulted from just four coverings
– and the following two seasons were spent in Florida with cheap
mares as his consorts. His three-year-old celebrities of 2007 are
from the first crop conceived at Banstead Manor since his
repatriation as replacement for his deceased brother, Zafonic.
Although ZAMINDAR did not excel on the racecourse to
the same degree as Zafonic, a champion two-year-old and 2,000
Guineas winner, he was held in similar regard by his trainer,
Andre Fabre, and he already seems to be well on the way to
matching his brother’s achievements as a sire. The pair’s
successes, both as athletes and progenitors, are easy to accept
now, but they would not have been readily predictable from the
performances of some of those in the bottom quarter of their
pedigree just a few generations ago.
Their fourth dam, Cheb (Denturius) was a useful sprinter who won
eight races over the minimum distance in modest company from two to
five years, but trailed off disappointingly to finished unplaced in
all ten starts as a six-year-old. Small, and light-framed, she went
on to breed six winners, and two of them were smart. Reet Lass
(Right Boy), of similar build to her dam, was unbeaten in five
races as a juvenile, her successes including the Molecomb and
Lowther Stakes. Chebs Lad (Lucky Brief) was an even better
two-year-old; he kicked off with a win in the Brocklesby, later
finished second in the Gimcrack, won the Champagne, and for the
Observer Gold Cup, run on soft ground that he could not cope with,
he started at 6-1, while the runaway winner, Vaguely Noble, was an
8-1 shot.
Reet Lass did not grow and added no more wins at three, was
exported to the States, and presumably died or failed ever to get
in foal; there is no record of her in the American Stud Book. Chebs
Lad, by contrast, continued to show smart form, never better than
when fifth in Sir Ivor’s 2,000 Guineas, was Hobdayed as a
four-year-old, and subsequently had a rather uneventful stint at
stud in Yorkshire.
Never in the same league as Reet Lass and Chebs Lad was their
half-sister Wold Lass (Vilmorin), who was inbred 2 x 3 to Gold
Bridge and thus had little chance of ever staying further than
sprint distances. She showed a glimmer of form at two, when trained
by Jimmy Thompson, but it was not until her 22nd start, as a
four-year-old with Mick Easterby, that she managed to get her head
in front – in an apprentice selling handicap at Ayr. Timeform’s
final rating for her was 53.
If it were not for the performances of her siblings, Wold Lass
might have been considered an unsuitable subject for breeding, but
she was given her chance, usually with ordinary stallions, and
though often barren, she did produce three winners, one of them
significant to our story. That one, remarkably, was by a horse
whose sire was a temperamental five-furlong sprinter and whose dam
could not win outside selling company. By becoming the first to win
both the Newmarket and Curragh 2,000 Guineas, Right Tack (Hard Tack
ex Polly Macaw) unquestionably outran his pedigree, but that sort
of horse rarely reproduces himself at stud, and there were no great
hopes for him when he started out as a sire.
As it turned out, Right Tack sired only two Pattern winners in
Anax and Snapper Point, but he had two better runners who omitted
to win at that level – the colt quite curiously named champion
three year-old of 1974, Take A Reef, and the filly born that year
out of the wretched Wold Lass, Mofida. Bought for only 4,000gns as
a yearling by Barry Hills, Mofida proved to be a filly of
extraordinary toughness and gameness. She ran 41 times during her
three seasons in training, winning eight and being placed in 19.
She was three times placed at Group 3 level, and at four, after her
purchase by Robert Sangster, she acquitted herself creditably as
fifth to Solinus in the July Cup.
Sangster mated Mofida with his equally game dual Derby and King
George winner The Minstrel in her first three seasons at stud,
opting to sell her to Khalid Abdullah after having obtained what
turned out to be the unsuccessful Mariakova from her. The mare
slipped second time around, but her next foal – for Juddmonte – was
Zaizafon, who won the Group 3 Seaton Delaval Stakes and was placed
third in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes (then Group 2).
As the dam of both Zafonic and ZAMINDAR,
Zaizafon was a scarcely less significant purchase by Juddmonte from
Sangster than was Sookera, the third dam of Dansili, Banks Hill,
Heat Haze, Intercontinental, Cacique, Champs Elysees and the
family’s latest star, Sunday’s Princess Margaret Stakes heroine,
Visit.
Date:
01 August 2007