$11 million earner Zaaki retired

Zaaki, the once modest import whose Australian arrival launched the career of Annabel Neasham, has been retired after a career which netted him four Group 1 wins, 13 stakes wins overall and over $11 million in prizemoney.

Purchased for 150,000 guineas at the 2020 Tattersalls Horses In Training Sale by Blandford bloodstock on behalf of an Australian ownership syndicate led by Carl Holt, Zaaki proved a revelation in Australia.

Having won to Group 3 level in England, he made an almost immediate impact in his new home, winning the G1 Doomben Cup and both the G2 Hollindale Stakes and Q22 in his first campaign for Neasham.

As Neasham’s training career took flight, so too did Zaaki’s fortunes as he won the G1 Underwood Stakes and G 1Mackinnon Stakes in the spring of 2021. He was also scratched from the Cox Plate when a clear favourite on the morning of the race.

The following autumn saw Zaaki win the $5 million All Star Mile, while he was runner-up in the g1 Queen Elizabeth Stakes before claiming his second successive Hollindale Stakes.

In the spring of 2022, Zaaki ran third in a pair of Group 1 races in Melbourne and then fourth in the Cox Plate, won by Anamoe, before making it back-to-back wins in the Champions/Mackinnon Stakes at Flemington.

His only win since then came with a third success in the Hollindale, although he did run second on both the All Aged Stakes and the Northerly Stakes, with the latter proving to be his final run.

He retires as the 10th highest prizemoney earner in Australian racing history.

“The day has come, a bittersweet day, to retire our superstar Zaaki,” Neasham said.

“As a young trainer setting out, who would’ve thought I’d come across a horse like Zaaki from Day 1… I owe a huge amount of our success to him.

“Thank you, Zaaki, so much for what you’ve done for me and my career, and for everyone else around and involved in you.”

Zaaki, who was bred by Lanwades Stud’s Kirsten Rausing, is a son of Brazilian-bred sire Lerodesanimaux , whose other notable Group 1 winner was the Kentucky Derby hero Animal Kingdom, who stood in Australia at Arrowfield for four seasons,

Zaaki’s dam, Kesara, is by Sadler’s Wells and has produced six winners from nine foals to race. Her dam, Kaldounya, is a half-sister to Italian champion Altieri.