HARAS de Bonneval’s Zarak (Dubawi) is one of the hottest young sires in France, and his third crop of more than 80 juveniles will be hitting the track before long.

Having sired eight stakes winners in his first crop, including three Group 1-placed winners, Zarak had one stakes winner from his second crop until last week, and then in the space of 24 hours he added two more. Crown Princesse won the Group 3 Prix Cleopatre at Saint Cloud, continuing her upward curve on just her third start, before Jules Cooper’s Village Voice won the Listed Salsabil Stakes at Navan, also on her third outing.

Village Voice is trained by Jessica Harrington, and has already won back her 38,000gns purchase price at the Tattersalls Guineas Breeze Up Sale. Last year she won a maiden at Thurles and then was group-placed on her only other start. She is undoubtedly a filly of huge potential.

The first winner for her Street Sense (Street Cry) dam Sensible Way, a winner herself, Village Voice is a granddaughter of the very useful Nasheej (Swain). Placed in the Group 1 Fillies’ Mile at two, she won the Group 3 Solera Stakes from the subsequent Group 1 winner Confidential Lady, and added the Group 2 May Hill Stakes as a juvenile.

Classic-placed

She had an equally successful second season, racing for Malih Al Basti, winning the Group 3 Fred Darling Stakes and being twice placed at Group 1 level, in the Coronation Stakes and to Speciosa in the 1000 Guineas. Malih Al Basti retained Nasheej for breeding, and he also bred Village Voice. While Nasheej failed to breed a runner who gained any blacktype, she is now grandam of a pair of stakes winners.

Owned and bred by Haras de Saint Julien and Regula Vannod, and trained by Fabrice Chappet, Crown Princesse is a second winner, and first at blacktype level, for Lovemedo, a daughter of Zafeen (Zafonic). Lovemedo is one of a pair of stakes performers from her dam Suvretta Queen (Polish Precedent), and she earned her sole piece of blacktype when running second in the Listed Prix La Sorellina, a feature race at La Teste De Buch.

The further you go back in Crown Princesse’s family, the better it gets. Lovemedo is one of nine winners for Suvretta Queen, one of which was the Chantilly stakes winner Mary’s Precedent (Storming Home). She then bred a filly, Mary’s France (Acclamation), who was also runner-up in the same race at La Teste De Buch that Lovemedo was second in.

Real impact

Crown Princesse’s third dam is the unraced Allwaki (Miswaki). She had only two winners, but one of these was Premiere Creation (Green Tune) who didn’t win any stakes race, but was placed in the Grade 1 Del Mar Oaks. Premiere Creation bred a winner of the Group 3 Prix Cleopatre, while another of her daughters has made a real impact.

Starlet’s Sister (Galileo) has bred three outstanding winners in Sistercharlie (Myboycharlie), Sottsass (Siyouni) and My Sister Nat (Acclamation). Sistercharlie won seven Grade 1 races, among them the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf, and two editions each of the Diana Stakes and the Beverly D Stakes.

Sottsass, now a Coolmore sire, was the best three-year-old in the world after his victories in the Group 1 Prix du Jockey Club-French Derby and Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.

Bred and raced by His Highness the Aga Khan, Zarak had the misfortune to be a three-year-old the same year as Almanzor, who beat him in both the Group 1 Prix du Jockey Club-French Derby and Group 2 Prix Guillaume d’Ornano. However, Zarak got his Group 1 win the following summer, beating Silverwave by three-parts of a length in the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud over 12 furlongs. He had come close to doing so two months before that when he was a short-neck second to Cloth Of Stars in the Group 1 Prix Ganay over a furlong and a half less. .

Exceptional

Zarak is surely a Group 1 sire in the offing, and he is bred to be a success. The son of Dubawi (Dubai Millennium) is out of the exceptional Zarkava (Zamindar). She remained undefeated through a Group 1 spree that culminated in a two-length defeat of Youmzain in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. That was her fourth top-level win in a row and her fifth overall.

Zarkava landed the Group 1 Prix Marcel Boussac at two and beat Goldikova in the Group 1 Poule d’Essai des Pouliches-French 1000 Guineas the following spring. She followed a three-length defeat of Gagnoa in the Group 1 Prix de Diane-French Oaks with a two-length win over Dar Re Mi in the Group 1 Prix Vermeille. In 2023 her star son may match her feat of producing a Group 1 winner.

Kingman’s classic crop deliver

KINGMAN and Zarak share a number of things in common, one of them being the fact that they are both out of classic-winning daughters of Zamindar (Gone West).

Kingman’s dam Zenda, a half-sister to champion racehorse and leading sire Oasis Dream (Green Desert), won the Group 1 Poule d’Essai des Pouliches-French 1000 Guineas.

This is a family that has become renowned for producing stallions, and New Bay (Dubawi) is from the same female line.

Kingman’s fifth crop are this year’s three-year-olds, and he has sired six Group/Grade 1 winners to date. Only his 2019 crop has yet to yield a winner at this level. Two of his Group 1 winning sons are now at stud, Palace Pier and Persian King. His current classic crop includes last season’s Group 1 Fillies’ Mile winner Commissioning, but there would appear to be a number of others who could yet join her.

In fact, George Strawbridge’s homebred Epictetus (Kingman) was runner-up last year in the Group 1 Vertem Futurity, and he opened his stakes-winning account recently with success in the Listed Blue Riband Trial at Epsom over 10 furlongs. Could be win the Derby in June? If he did, he would make the 750,000gns that Strawbridge spent on his dam Thistle Bird (Selkirk) look value.

Thistle Bird was carrying Epictetus when she was bought, and she is not the only sale ring star in the immediate family. Her daughter Jumbly (Gleneagles), a Group 3 winner last year, sold to MV Magnier and Joseph O’Brien for 1,250,000gns at the most recent December Sale. She and Epictetus are the two blacktype winners out of Thistle Bird who gained the best of her eight wins as a six-year-old in the Group 1 Pretty Polly Stakes.

Classic entry

Unbeaten now in two starts, and with a classic entry, Remarquee (Kingman) is trained by Ralph Beckett for her owner/breeder Julian Richmond Watson. He breeds in the name of Lawn Stud. Were Remarquee to win a classic, she would not be the first to do so in the immediate family, and that Oaks winner was also raced and bred by Richmond-Watson and trained by Beckett.

Good looking

The classic-winning filly in question is Look Here (Hernando), and she is a daughter of the unraced Last Look (Rainbow Quest), the third dam of Remarquee. Becket also trained the recent Group 3 Fred Darling Stakes winner’s grandam Look So (Efisio) to win four races, while he did even better with Remarquee’s dam Regardez (Champs Elysees), placing her to win a listed race at Newcastle, be group-placed in Ireland Britain, and this was before she joined Chad Brown in the USA, winning once and being placed in a graded stakes race there.

Beckett and Richmond-Watson teamed up for another Group 1 win with the family, when Regardez’s half-brother Scope (Teofilo) won the Group 1 Prix Royal-Oak at ParisLongchamp two years ago.