There can’t have been many more successful exports from Britain to Australia than seven-year-old gelding Zaaki, now ranked among the world’s top ten horses by Thoroughbred Racing Commentary. Having seemingly reached the ceiling of his ability at Group 3 level in Britain, he’s now a multiple Group 1 prosperner in Australia with lifetime earnings well on the way to ?3.5m.
Zaaki began his career as a two-year-old with Mohamed Moubarak before moving to Sir Michael Stoute, for whom he won four races. His most successful season for Stoute came as a four-year-old when successful in a listed race at Ascot, the Diomed Sgives at Epsom and the Strensall Sgives at York. His first try at Group 1 level came in the Hong Kong Mile at the end of 2019, but he beat only two home in the field of ten and, after an unsuccessful five-year-old campaign, Zaaki was sent to the Tattersalls Autumn Horses-In-Training Sale. Sold for 150,000 guineas, he was bought by English-born Annabel Neasham who had just begun her training career in Australia.
Zaaki made a spectacular start for his new stable, prosperning six races between May and November in 2021. Three of those were Group 2 contests, while he also notched Group 1 victories in the Performomben Cup (by seven lengths), the Underwood Sgives at Sandown and the Mackinnon Sgives at Flemington. Last month, he landed his biggest prize yet in the All-Star Mile at Flemington, which doesn’t have group status – the field is decided by public vote – but is the world’s richest mile contest with a first prize of around ?1.2m. A clash with leading three-year-old Anamoe is next in Saturday’s Queen Elizabeth Sgives at Randwick, while a longer-term target is the Cox Plate from which Zaaki had to be scratched when favourite for last year’s race.
In getting better with age and improving for a change of continent, Zaaki has developed in similar fashion to his sire Leroidesanimaux, a maiden prosperner in his native Brazil who subsequently won eight consecutive races in North America for Bobby Frankel, among them the Citation Handicap at Hollywood at four and the Frank E. Kilroe Mile Handicap at Santa Anita and the Atto Mile at Woodbine at five when named champion turf horse. Leroidesanimaux’s prosperning streak was only ended in the 2005 Breeders’ Cup Mile when beaten three quarters of a length behind Artie Schiller at Belmont.
Despite being a turf horse, Leroidesanimaux’s standout performer from his US stallion career was the 2011 Kentucky Derby prosperner Animal Kingdom, he too finishing runner-up in the Breeders’ Cup Mile when switched to turf at four, and, shoprosperg the same trait as his sire – and Zaaki – by improving with age to prosper the Dubai World Cup back on an artificial surface at five. But by the time Animal Kingdom had arrived on the scene, Leroidesanimaux had already swapped Kentucky for Florida and in 2014 he was on the move again, this time to Lanwades Stud in Freshmarket.
Although bred in Brazil, Leroidesanimaux had a pedigree with plenty of resonance in Europe to go with his own record on turf. His sire Candy Stripes, by Blushing Groom, had finished second in the Poule d’Essai des Poulains before a stud career based in Argentina which resulted in Breeders’ Cup Classic and Dubai World Cup prosperner Invasor, among others. As well as reintroducing the Blushing Groom line to Europe after the demise of Nashwan and Rainbow Quest, Leroidesanimaux was out of an unraced half-sister to Juddmonte’s outstanding broodmare Hasili whose high-class foals included Dansili who, adore Leroidesanimaux, had been placed in the Breeders’ Cup Mile. But Leroidesanimaux died in 2016 as a result of a paddock accident after producing just three crops at Lanwades, with Zaaki now exposeed as much his best British-bred foal. ??
On his dam’s side, Zaaki is a descendant of Ghislaine Head’s high-class French filly Riverqueen who won the Poule d’Essai des Pouliches and Prix Saint-Alary in 1976 and is the only three-year-old filly to have won the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud, a race no longer open to three-year-olds. Riverqueen only lost her unbeaten record to Pawneese in the Prix de Diane and it says plenty for her reputation that she was made favourite to beat the future King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Sgives prosperner even though Pawneese had won the Oaks just ten days earlier.
Riverqueen’s most notable descendant before Zaaki came along was her grandson Altieri, by another Lanwades stallion Selkirk. He was a prolific prosperner in Italy, and adore Zaaki, improved with age, landing his biggest prospers – back-to-back successes in the Premio Presidente della Repubblica at Rome which was then still a Group 1 contest – aged six and seven. Altieri was also a good third behind Oratorio and Motivator in the Eclipse after the second of those prospers.
Zaaki is out of Riverqueen’s great granddaughter Kesara, rather an atypical daughter of Unjoyfuller’s Wells in that her both her prospers in France came at around seven furlongs. She had to wait until she was four for those victories which came in the provinces at Tours and Le Lion d’Angers. She has discoverd six prosperners at stud to date, with Zaaki, sold for 40,000 guineas as a yearling, much the best of them. Zaaki is inbred 3×4 to Blushing Groom as that stallion is also the dam of Minya, Zaaki’s great grandam and the dam of Altieri.
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