First Australian 2-year-old winner for Kingman

Cover image courtesy of Ashlea Brennan

The Godolphin 2-year-old train kept rolling at Gosford on Thursday when the filly Zardozi (Kingman {GB}) just got the better of her stablemate, Restonica (Exceed And Excel), in the juvenile feature.

The 1200-metre sprint took place in very hot conditions, as was the case across much of the eastern seaboard, but Zardozi surprised many with a sudden burst up the rails under Chad Schofield that stole the victory and landed her a $21 winner.

The filly won by 0.3l from Restonica, with the Paul Perry-trained The Escape (Shalaa {Ire}) 1.12l back to third. The race was ticked off in 1:11.63, the final 600 metres in 36.55s.

For Zardozi, it was the first race of her career after numerous trials since October. As recently as March 7, she’d been fourth to the promising Fludway (Exceed And Excel) over 1050 metres.

According to Vin Cox, she was a filly that was highly respected before her debut on Thursday, and it won’t surprise anyone if Zardozi is stakes-bound before season’s end.

“It’s a long way from Gosford to a stakes race, but we were impressed with the way she did it today,” Cox said, speaking to TDN AusNZ. “She gave them a start and a beating, which is a pretty good effort.

“We won’t step too far into the deep end but hopefully we’ll get her through her grades and maybe there’ll be some black type at the back end of autumn, maybe into Scone or even the start of the Brisbane carnival. That may pop up for her, but at this stage it’s quite optimistic.”

The Kingman numbers

Zardozi boasts one of the best pedigrees imaginable for a Gosford maiden. By Kingman (GB), she’s the first foal from the Dubawi (Ire) mare Chanderi (GB).

Chanderi was sent to Kingman on Southern Hemisphere time in 2019 and foaled down in Australia the following year, and she herself comes with a good story.

Chanderi was sold to Godolphin in 2017 for 1.3 million gns (AU$2.48 million) at the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale. She was among Book 1 in the draft of Highclere Stud, a daughter of the Dalakhani (Ire) mare Silk Sari (GB).

This is the family of no less than Barathea (Ire), that great, Group 1-winning sire who raced in the old maroon colours of Sheikh Mohammed.

“This family goes right back to horses like Barathea, who was a very prominent racehorse for Sheikh Mohammed back in the day,” Cox said. “Chanderi is a very good-looking mare and one of those that our European counterparts were looking to potentially sell.

“They asked us if we’d like to take her on and we said ‘you bet’, and so we got her in foal to Kingman and Zardozi is the resultant foal.”

To date, the Juddmonte sire Kingman has had only eight runners to the track in Australia. These are horses that were foaled in the Southern Hemisphere (not imports), and of these eight, he’s had five winners, including Zardozi. However, the filly is his first 2-year-old winner in Australia.

“He wouldn’t have had a lot of 2-year-old runners down here,” Cox said. “We’ve had the odd one. We sent two mares up to him this season and we’ve brought down one mare in foal to him, and he’s obviously a stallion we’ve got a bit of time for. Our Northern Hemisphere colleagues certainly like him and we’ve got no less than his best son on our roster in Palace Pier.”

Cox said there’s no reason why the Kingman sireline won’t work in Australia. Like I Am Invincible, the Juddmonte star is a son of Invincible Spirit (Ire), a line that is very decorated in this country.

“He gets a very precocious horse in Europe, which works well for us, and he gets a good-looking horse as well,” Cox said. “Unfortunately, we don’t get to access him outside of breeding to Southern Hemisphere time, so the numbers aren’t huge for him down here.”

All up, Kingman has had three juvenile runners in the Southern Hemisphere for a win and a place, with the bulk of his success in Australia emerging from 3-year-olds. Nevertheless, a few heads at Godolphin on Thursday were surprised that Zardozi went into her race at such long odds.

“She was one of the fillies that the team at Crown Lodge had a bit of time for,” Cox said. “They identified her as one that would be quite progressive, so it was good to see her do that at Gosford.”

The art of switching hemispheres

Zardozi’s result is a promising start for the young Chanderi in Australia. She’s only seven years old by European time, and she’s since foaled a Lonhro colt named Adinath, and she has an Exceed And Excel colt at foot.

The mare was sent to Palace Pier (GB) in the spring, which was an obvious but unsuccessful mating.

“We sent her to Palace Pier but unfortunately she didn’t take to him,” Cox said. “That was off the back of all the noise we were hearing about Zardozi, and we did like that filly as an individual. Being a son of Kingman, Palace Pier would have worked well, so while we haven’t done our matings yet for the spring, I would say that he’ll be the starting favourite for her for the next season.”

Cox said it’s always nice to see Godolphin’s northern mares come down and get a good start. It’s better, he said, than seeing them in a sale ring.

“Another mare that we brought down on a similar vein was Sayf Shamal, and her first Southern Hemisphere foal was Zulfiqar, who won the Maribyrnong Trial and a Group 3 this season,” he said. “So she’s another one that’s done a good job. She’s a daughter of Alizes and so a half-sister to Essaouira, and she came out unfortunately barren to Frankel. But her first mating was to Exceed And Excel, which got Zulfiqar.

“So it’s something we do a bit of, particularly if they’ve got some sort of Australian flavour, and in fact even Anamoe’s mother was in Europe, who we brought down as well.”

As such, Godolphin has made it something of an art to switch certain mares down here if they’re thought suitable for Australia, and it seems to be working.

“We’d hate to see them turn up in a sale up there, sold by Godolphin, when we’d like to see them do well down here,” Cox said.