Thursday 6 August 2015
H.H. The Aga Khan’s green and red silks were to the fore at Cork on Tuesday evening, with progressive fillies ESHERA and ZANNDA both winning their respective Stakes contests.
The lightly raced ESHERA set the ball rolling for Dermot Weld, justifying favouritism to record a brave win against her elders in the LR Platinum Stakes. This was the third outing and second victory for three-year-old ESHERA, who has now won twice over a mile. Her jockey Pat Smullen felt that there is more to come from the filly, “She is a lovely filly and I think a lot of her. I would like to think that she will progress from this and run in a Group 3. Another furlong wouldn’t go astray with her. ”
ESHERA hails from one of the Aga Khan Studs most celebrated families, as the daughter of Oratorio is out of the Listed-placed Eytarna, a half-sister to the Group 1 winning quartet Enzeli, Estimate, Ebadiyla and Edabiya.
The second Stakes winner of the evening, ZANNDA, represents another top class Aga Khan Studs maternal line, that of champion Zarkava, and the filly is a daughter of the late Azamour.
ZANNDA boasts a faultless race record to date, finishing in the first two in all five public appearances, including runner-up at both Listed and Group 3 level.
Her success in the Gr. 3 Give Thanks Stakes was therefore highly deserved on this first attempt over mile and a half. The Dermot Weld-trained ZANNDA displayed plenty of courage to take the advantage in the final stages over her elder Altesse. Pat Smullen was impressed once again, “ZANNDA is a grand filly. The ground is vital to her and she wouldn’t want it any quicker than that. The step up in trip suited her and she tried hard.” The next target for ZANNDA is likely to be the Gr. 2 Prix de Royallieu on Arc weekend at Longchamp.
ZANNDA is the latest example of the prowess of Dalakhani as a broodmare sire, her winning dam Zanoubiya being a daughter of the Gilltown stallion, while her granddam Zanara is by the Aga Khan Studs influential Kahyasi. The fourth dam of ZANNDA, Zarna, daughter of Zahra, is the third dam of unbeaten Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner Zarkava.
Updated on 06/08/2015.
