Zarkava Wins the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe

Zarkava wins the Arc for the Aga Khan; the filly must be something special to win seven from seven now.  Is there anything outstanding in her pedigree to support this outstanding race record?

As always there are some very obvious observations and most support the analysis I have previously made in these articles.

Markova hails from a great Aga Khan family...or is that really so?  That his stud sent this mare to Seminar an ‘off course substitute’ as he is the lesser stallion brother of champion Zafonic, who unfortunately died out here on shuttle after serving just five mares I believe with four being positive.  This family traces to the wonder mare of the late 1950s in Petite Etoile, a rather poor performer at stud.  In Zarkava’s pedigree, she is the fifth dam which given ten year to a generation works out about right.  The Aga Khan’s advisors have successfully dented the value of this family through a succession of poorly conceived matings.  Petit Etoile’s first issue in this stirp of the family, was Zahra, ran ‘along a few times’ the sales catalogue page tells us – she did manage a place...she was the result of that very dubious notion of the ‘best to the best and hope for the best’.  Sound familiar, what utter nonsense this approach is, ruining many a great race mare.

As an example of this look at Champagne...a sorry tale she has started to become a ‘failure’ mare, ruined by the owners following the time honour route to failure, ‘breed the best to the best and hope for the best’.  She has a Giant’s Causeway son at stud this year in Queensland – she should never have seen Giant’s Causeway, a significant under performer in this market for Coolmore, number 7 for them.  I keep score of their poor strike rate, but I am more interested in breeding top racehorses than in making money.  There is an old economic maxim in primary production, which I learnt on the family farm in New Zealand, the goal should to produce the best; when that is achieved you will get the best price.   That has been turned on its ear by the modern vendors of stallion services...

Returning to Petite Etoile, her daughter Zahra still had good residual value and was then sent to the next ‘best stallion cab off the rank’, the home bred in Shernazar, who managed to win the September S and a second in a Listed race.  The performance received a 100% improvement, the result of the mating was Zarna, who managed to win a race...and already the advisors to HH the Aga Khan have written the daughters of Petit Etiole off by having sent her their modestly performed Shernazar.

Therefore, where to from here...well remarkably Zarna gets a chance in the court of the far better racehorse and stallion prospect, Doyoun who won the 2000 Guineas amongst others.  Result was a filly, called Zarkana and she won two modest races.  Staying with continuing to upgrade the stirp the advisors of the Aga Khan now send this mare to the next top stallion they have on offer, who was a dual Derby winner - Derby Stakes (Eng-Gr.1), Irish Derby (Ire-Gr.1).  Brave move given the matings before to Shernazar.  The result was Zarkasha who was unraced...that might be for a variety of reason, so I will not comment further...

The towel is thrown in now and this Zarkasha is sent to Zamindar the alive brother to the deceased and very successful Zafonic...who is an outside service as Zamindar is a star at Juddmonte Farm, UK.  The result is a ‘freak’ in the vernacular...nothing going on in the past four generations and then a champion filly!  Has to be a ‘freak’..., which is an awful way to describe our human foolishness and a considerable disservice to a top class race filly.  She is the result of family completions, and this family completion took five generations to express itself after every endeavour was made to completely ruin the original mare, Petit Etoile.

Some observations now about what we see.  The dam of Zarkava returned to the sire the sisters Rose Red and Sweet Lavender.  As I have noted before these sisters are almost germane to the modern thoroughbred and here is proof.  There are a few other things to note as well.  The Petite Etoile family hails from tail female to Mumtaz Mahal.  It is interesting to note that Petite Etoile‘s sire Petition is a son of Fair Trial, ALSO from the same tail female family, that of Lady Josephine, as 4 x 5.  Was this reason for Petite Etoile’s success as a race mare?  I do not believe so...

All those wonderful genes lay in wait until they found away to express themselves.  Old genes never die, they are passed along...but how did Petite Etoile happen, she was from a mare that had 12 starts for ONE win!  Belies the ‘best to the best and HOPE for the best’ nonsense doesn’t it!  The answer to Petite Etoile lies in the dominant sire of the immediate past and his sister.  Brother and sisters again!  It was no more complex than this...!

In Zarkava we do see clear evidence of time rewarding the genetic makeup, and we see Zafonic receiving a strain of Malindi, sister to Nasrullah.  These two hail from Mumtaz Begum a daughter of Mumtaz Mahal ex Lady Josephine.  Therefore, the renewal of the family completion is at play again, through a brother and sister.

One final point to note, the sire carries The Minstrel a ¾ brother to Nijinsky II, and neatly we receive a balanced M and F strains of the mare 5 x 5 of Flaming Page.  The answer is always obvious...

Article by  Barry Keown