Andrew Caulfield: Zawraq
LEOPARDSTOWN 2000 GUINEAS TRIAL S.-Listed, €45,000, LEP, 4-12, 3yo, 8fT, 1:52.25, sf/hy.
1–#ZAWRAQ (IRE), 129, c, 3, by Shamardal
1st Dam: Sundus, by Sadler’s Wells
2nd Dam: Sarayir, by Mr. Prospector
3rd Dam: Height of Fashion (Fr), by Bustino (GB)
O-Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum;
B-Shadwell Estate Company Ltd (Ire); T-Dermot Weld;
J-Pat Smullen. €29,250. Lifetime Record: 2-2-0-0,
€40,635. Click for the Racing Post result.
Video, sponsored by Fasig-Tipton.
Last week saw several of the world’s leading stallions show exactly why they command such a high price tag.
Thanks to his graded stakes-winning treble with Untapable, Race Day and Divining Rod, the U.S.’s highest-priced stallion Tapit now enjoys a lead of over $1.4 million over Candy Ride in the race to be America’s leading sire for a second time. There were also notable successes for War Front and Medaglia d’Oro, the other American stallions who command fees of more than $100,000. War Front added another Grade I winner to his tally with Jack Milton, while Medaglia d’Oro may have won a few European converts following the dramatic G3 Prix de la Grotte success of his daughter Mexican Gold. Remember, five of the last 10 winners of this Group 3 event have gone on to success in the G1 French 1,000 Guineas.
Over in Japan the G1 Oka Sho, the Japanese 1,000 Guineas, was won in great style by the unflatteringly named Let’s Go Donki. Her victory helped her sire King Kamehameha take a narrow lead on the sires’ list over his dominant stud companion Deep Impact. King Kamehameha, who also enjoyed Group 2 success with another of his 3-year-olds, Yamakatsu Ace, has had to be content with second place behind Deep Impact on the leading sires’ list in each of the last three years, having topped the table in 2010 and 2011.
And in Europe, the early skirmishes of the turf season confirmed that several of the highest-priced stallions–Dubawi, Invincible Spirit and Shamardal–are set for another very rewarding year. We also saw Grade I winners in Australia by two other members of the elite brigade, Dansili and Teofilo (plus one by the €20,000 Holy Roman Emperor).
Shamardal’s excellent week saw yet another excellent win in Hong Kong by his Australian-bred son Able Friend. This gelding shares top weight of 125 with Shared Belief on the latest edition of Longines World’s Best Racehorse Rankings, to Apr. 5.
Shamardal also had a trio of European stakes wins, thanks to Akatea in France, Amaron in Germany and Zawraq in Ireland.
This spate of success builds on Shamardal’s first-rate efforts last year, which saw him finish third behind Galileo and Invincible Spirit on the Anglo-Irish prize-money table and equal third with Dubawi, behind Galileo and Deep Impact, on the TDN’s table of leading sires of group/graded winners, with 14.
Not surprisingly, Shamardal’s fee now stands at a career high of €70,000, which is €20,000 more than in the previous four years and €30,000 more than his initial fee. It is worth mentioning that his price fell to €20,000 in his fourth and fifth seasons, but that fall had little effect on the quality of those two crops. The 2010 crop was headed by the G1 Prix Vermeille winner Baltic Baroness, whereas the 2011 team has so far produced five group winners.
It’s only fair, though, to expect Shamardal’s higher-priced crops to do even better, so the pressure is on his current crop of 3-year-olds, which are the first of his €50,000 foals. Four of them–Lucida, Akatea, Fond Words and Zawraq–have already become stakes winners and–as I pointed out in a recent column in the Thoroughbred Owner & Breeder–Shamardal ranked second only to Galileo in order of number of nominees for this year’s French Classics, with no fewer than 21.
One of them is the royally bred Zawraq, who followed up his victory in a red-hot maiden last year with an impressive re-entry in the Leopardstown 2000 Guineas Trial. These performances leave little doubt that he will soon fulfil the high hopes held of him by the very experienced Dermot Weld, who describes him as his best 3-year-old colt.
In winning at Leopardstown, Zawraq became the fourth stakes winner to emerge from Shamardal’s 42 foals of racing age out of mares by Sadler’s Wells. The best of them is the previously mentioned Baltic Baroness, whose Prix Vermeille win came over a mile and a half. The combination also produced Excellent Result, a smart Group 2 winner who has scored at up to a mile and three-quarters, so it is easy to understand why Zawraq’s rider and trainer believe that the colt’s future lies over longer distances than a mile. That said, Shamardal’s other stakes winner with a dam by Sadler’s Wells is Akua’da, a German miler, and I would be tempted to keep the colt at a mile for a while, mainly in the hope that the ground comes up soft–as it often does–on the day of the Irish 2,000 Guineas.
The bottom half of Zawraq’s pedigree encourages the belief that he will shine over a mile and a quarter, and eventually over a mile and a half. In addition to having Sadler’s Wells as his broodmare sire, Zawraq has the exceptional broodmare Height of Fashion as his third dam. As a daughter of the St Leger winner Bustino, Height of Fashion wasn’t short of stamina, as she showed when she led throughout over a mile and a half to take the G2 Princess of Wales’s S.
She generally succeeded in passing on a large measure of her stamina, to the extent that she produced a succession of top-class mile-and-a-half performers to Northern Dancer, the first-rate miler Blushing Groom and the champion sprinter Gulch. She also produced two other stakes winners–the Danzig colt Mukddaam and the Mr. Prospector filly Sarayir–which also stayed a good deal better than their sires.
It is Sarayir who ranks as Zawraq’s second dam, which means that the colt’s dam, the 10-furlong winner Sundus, is a half-sister to those high-class performers Ghanaati (1,000 Guineas and G1 Coronation S.) and Mawatheeq (a Group 3 winner over a mile and a half, by Danzig).
The fact that Ghanaati is a daughter of Giant’s Causeway no doubt provided some of the inspiration for sending her half-sister to Shamardal, arguably the most talented of Giant’s Causeway’s many good sons.
Sarayir was the only stakes winner among Height of Fashion’s five daughters, but her two sisters have also made their mark as broodmares, with Wijdan producing the Group 2 winners Makderah and Oriental Fashion, whie Bashayer became the second dam of the champion turf mare Lahudood. Manwah, another of Height of Fashion’s daughters, produced the smart Mustanfar. It is going to be fascinating to see whether Sarayir’s Rahy filly Rumoush can maintain the family’s very high standards. Third in the 2010 Oaks, she has naturally been given every chance at Shadwell, with Dansili, Dubawi and Frankel figuring among her early mates.
It is worth mentioning that Zawraq is inbred 4×3 to Mr. Prospector (and 5×3 to Northern Dancer). Of Shamardal’s other top winners, the top 10-furlong Mukhadram is inbred 4×4 to Mr. Prospector and the Group 2 winners Ihtimal and Ghibellines are inbred 4×4. And don’t forget that Shamardal’s highly promising stallion son Lope de Vega is inbred 3×3 to Machiavellian, and therefore 4×4 to Mr. Prospector.
Lope de Vega was recently represented by his fifth first-crop group winner when Ride Like The Wind surged to victory in the G3 Prix Djebel, and it seems fair to assume that he–together with Shamardal–is set fair for another eye-catching year.