The Aga Sure Khan

One of the most enduringly successful influences in thoroughbred breeding and racing has been that of the Aga Khan, and his predecessors.

The current Aga has a homebred three-year-old filly in France named Zarkava (pictured) which, so far, is proving exceptional. On Sunday she won the G1 Prix Vermeille at Longchamp to remain unbeaten in six starts and become the first since Allez France in 1973 to complete the French fillies' triple crown, the 1000 Guineas-Oaks-Vermeille. She has the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in her sights - Allez France was second as a three-year-old, beaten by Rheingold.

The Aga is one of those people responsible for developing female families in which all the horse names have the same starting letter, in this case a Z family. Usually these names have Persian/Arabic derivations and are often very similar to each other. Annoying to the unsophisticated Anglo-Saxons amongst us who can’t differentiate.

The Aga inherited and further developed a rich thoroughbred heritage and has since made some highly strategic acquisitions, in sometimes controversial circumstances which reached the courts, notably the Boussac and Legardere bloodstock legacies.

Zarkava’s sire is Zamindar, Juddmonte’s lesser sibling of Zafonic but proving a useful sire. Her first four dams all begin with Z (zzzzz…zzzzz) but the fifth dam is one of the supreme race fillies, Petite Etoile (Petition-Star Of Iran) who was a tragedy at stud herself, producing just three foals in 14 seasons. Petite Etoile’s fourth dam was Mumtaz Mahal. Zarkava’s pedigree features 3m x 4m to the three-quarter brothers The Minstrel and Nijinsky.

In a blog like this, where readers don’t figure to have an attention span longer than five minutes, it would be impossible to paint a pen-portrait of the Aga Khan dynasty’s profound role in shaping the modern thoroughbred, and I’d have to take a year off to research it properly in any case. Not long ago, John Messara, Arrowfield, announced a breeding arrangement with a handful of the Aga’s mares which, as he said at the time, was quite a development for this part of the world.

Not that there isn't plenty of the Aga Khan bloodlines here in the gene pool already, acquired primarily at northern hemisphere clearing sales. Arrowfield’s near-neighbour, Kia Ora Stud, for example, owns half a dozen choicely-bred young Aga Khan mares including Zarinia (Ire), by Intikhab (USA), a mare whose third dam is the fourth dam of Zarkava. Later this week a Kia Ora bred and owned filly, Davala, will make her racetrack debut from the Guy Walter stable and she is 100% Aga Khan. Conceived in Ireland to southern time, she is by the Aga’s champion Dalakhani (Darshaan-Daltawa) out of Shashzaya (Ire), an S family mare by Ashkalani (Ire)-Shashna. Ten days ago, Davala’s three-year-old three-quarter sister Shemima won the G3 Prix de Lutece at Longchamp over 3000m. As Dalakhani is proving a significant early success at stud with this year’s G1 Irish Oaks winner Moonstone and G1 English St Leger winner Conduit leading the way, it will be interesting to see if Davala develops into anything. Next autumn perhaps? Interestingly, earlier this year Kia Ora imported a Danehill half-sister to Moonstone (also a half-sister to G1 winner Cerulean Sky, the dam of Melbourne Cup possible Honolulu).

As an owner-breeder, the Aga Khan has been able to steadfastly breed the way he’s wanted to and assiduously develop those marvelous, mainly classic-oriented, families. He and the likes of Prince Khaled Abdullah, Juddmonte, are colossuses (or colossusi?) of European breeding, churning out high quality winners year after year. The Aga Khan has studs in Ireland and France and currently stands his homebreds Dalakhani, Sinndar and Azamour.

The present Aga Khan (Prince Karim al-Husseini) is the fourth to carry this honorific title which first came into being in the 1830s and roughly translated means ‘Commanding Chief’. For 51 years (he is in his 72nd year) he has been the Imam of the Ismaili Muslim sect, the 49th Imam in a line which goes all the way back to Ali, the cousin of the prophet Muhammad. That's a pedigree.

Coincidentally, on the same Longchamp racecard on Sunday, a three-year-old colt maintained his unbeaten six-for-six career tally. Vision d’Etat won the G2 Prix Niel over 2400m, his first race since winning the French Derby, a 2100m race these days, on June 1.

Zarkava and Vision d’Etat, who are set to clash in the Arc, come from opposite sides of the tracks.

Vision d’Etat is by a grey stallion named Chichicastenango, to whom you got a free service if you could pronounce the name without hesitating first time of asking. (It’s a small city in Guatemala, so Guatemalans weren’t eligible for free services). A 1998 product, Chichicastenango is bred on the world famous Smadoun/Antheus cross. Smadoun (grandson of Caro) sired two stakeswinners. Chichicastenango was one of them, a decent dual G1 winner who was also second in the French Derby when it was run over the proper distance. He’s from the 2-s family; his seventh dam is Somethingroyal (fourth dam of Typhoon Zed). In another coincidence, there’s a grey 2-s family sire in Australia, the little-used Dyslexia. Young Chichicastenango is probably already doing better than his sire ever did. His last advertised service fee was 3,500 euros with a live foal guarantee. He stands at the historic Haras de Victot, about 30 kms south of Deauville.

There’s nothing particularly modern or sexy about Vision d’Etat’s pedigree. His dam, who traces to Illuminata, was 19 when she produced the colt. But lurking in the pedigree is my favourite genetic atom bomb, Mill Reef, sire of Vision d’Etat’s broodmare sire Garde Royale. French racing has this propensity to throw up G1 horses from the most modest backgrounds, I think moreso than Britain which is almost totally in the grip of the Irish and Arabs. One I recall is Millkom, a sensation of French racing in the mid-90s, a son of Cyrano de Bergerac (it’s an oldie but a goodie – he always won by a nose).

It’s easy to become dispirited watching the swathe being cut through the ranks of quality Australian bloodstock by the likes of Darley, Patinack and Coolmore. Try competing with them! I shudder at the prospect of all the good races in Australia being contested only by jockeys wearing maroon and purple (and occasionally navy and cerise). But the Vision d’Etats of this world remind me that no one’s got a total lock on winning.