Zardana
 

Riboletta was a beast - very few female horses I've ever seen had a chance with her on her good day. I was a big fan of hers.

Like Zardana - she came up at Gavea in Brazil.

Riboletta was friggen terrible when they'd run her on turf in America. But both Baffert and Inda insisted on racing her on it here and there.

Zardana has won a turf stakes in America - and won a Gr 2 on Syn at Hollywood two starts back. But, she's been underwhelming since arriving from Gavea with a perfect 3-for-3 record .. winning her 3 dirt races by a combined 39 lengths.

People might no believe it - but making speed figures for that track Bambera last raced at is probably easier than making them for Presque Isle Downs (<- home of the almost daily variant split) Equibase does full charts for that track, video of most races are available, and plenty of very recent American runners compete there.

Gavea, on the other hand, forget about it. But I was able find out some interesting things about the April 21st 2007 card from Gavea that Zardana competed on in Brazil for the final time.

She won a 50K stake over a field of 11 by 16+ lengths getting 7 furlongs in 1:26.90

On that same day, fellow 2yo filly Olympic Glory won a 5.5 furlong maiden race in 1:07.90 (the equivlent of 15.5 Beyer points slower)

It's the same Olympic Glory that once raced competitively with Cocoa Beach and Argentian champion Fiesta Lady at 7fs in Dubai ...



In the two other dirt races at Gavea - conditional older alw males went 7fs in 1:27.60 (8 points slower than Zardana) and open alw older males went 5.5f in 1:06.90 (1 point slower than Zardana)

Running slightly faster than older alw males may not sound that impressive .. but keep in mind that we are talking about what was a 2yo filly at the time. A figure in the 85 range wins a Grade 1 like the 7f Spinaway at Saratoga many years.

Older alw males at Beulah Park run in the mid 60's. Older alw males at Penn National run in the 80's. I'd conservatively assume that Gavea's older alw males are somewhere between that range.

I certainly don't think Zardana's going to beat RA .. but there's a chance she might be better on dirt than a lot of people think. We might get a competitive race if Shireffs has her all geared up and she actually is a true dirt horse. I'm looking forward to it.

One of your bettor efforts...and it came before the race!

Wouldn't Sheriffs just use her as a rabbit to bother RA on the front end, if he ran her in the Apple Blossom?

From what's been reported, Shireffs says that the push has come from owner Arnold Zetcher (who is hoping to run in the Apple Blossom also).

In that regard, I don't think she's necessarily going to be used up to benefit Zenyatta. If she doesn't run a big race Saturday I would guess she doesn't go on to Oaklawn.

I've always been at my best before the race... or else I'd probably be in college now stacking up some debt.

It wasn't much of a gambling post - I still think RA should win even if she's short and Zardana moves way up on dirt ... but it could be a fun race if that happens.

Here was the best find I had when I put her name in Google with translations ... some South American guy wanting Congress to get involved to save their best horses from 'American greed' ...

I think Cannon Shell's foreign cousin wrote it.

If Baffert brings back the horse that won the Azeri (Freedom Star) to run in the Apple Blossom, that should provide Zenyatta with plenty of pace. I cannot imagine Baffert not running the horse back with the purse structure of the Apple Blossom.

This is true.

If the real Rachel Alexandra comes back ... the amount of other speed in the race absolutely will not matter to her.

She's run clearly her 3 best races on my final numbers rating kindly just off of horses like Munnings, Gabby's Golden Girl, and Malibu Prayer.

The only question though is how RA comes back. If she comes back as good or better than last year - Zenyatta has no chance.

The alarm for the Zenyatta Defense League goes off in Smooth Operator's backyard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOUSyoc7jpI

That's good work on zardana. She was so highly regarded coming over that she almost sent me off a bridge on more than one occasion. She will be a major factor off the paper mâché

Pour vous --> :$:

Do you think Jackson's worried/paranoid, hedging but confident, or playing Mad Libs again given his latest blurbs about Zardana?

I remember one of my most annoying butcher jobs as a gambler came on a turf horse named Ay Caramba (sp?) that Eduardo Camaroni trained.

He beat Leroidesanmeaux by 3 lengths in some turf race at Gavea in Leroy's final start in Brazil.

After that race, Leroy went to Bobby Frankel and had won like 4 straight races in awesome style - the latest was a course record or near course record win in the Inglewood.

Ay Caramba was entered in some dogsh!t turf stakes race at a mile at Mountaineer - and was like 20/1 on the ML. He couldn't possibly lose off of his Gavea form.

Naturally he scratches ... a few days later he wins an allowance race on the turf at Churchill by about 3 lengths - goes off at about 9/2 - and I somehow missed that he was entered.

That Ay Carmaba horse ended up being a graded stakes winner over here.

Pico Central also hooked up in a turf race at Gavea against Hard Buck

http://www.drf.com/row/pps/picocentral.pdf

Hard Buck was the blah horse of McPeak's who he took to Ascot for the King Geroge and QE Diamond and somehow got to run 2nd. He also ran 2nd in Dubai with him.

There's another interesting piece of trivia about Ay Caramba. Anyone know?

NT

Pat Day's last winning ride.

I have no idea at all... but if anyone is interested ... here's his and Leroy's forms.

I'm 99.99% sure that stake he was entered in at Mountaineer was on July 4th.

http://www.drf.com/row/pps/aycaramba.pdf

http://www.drf.com/row/pps/leroidesanimaux.pdf

Both of them ran F'ing awful on the dirt at Gavea.

I scored pretty big on that Ay Caramba at Monmouth in the stake. He crushed some pretty good horses in those classified allowance races at CD and for whatever reason they let him drift up. I think Hotstuffandthensome was the favorite and the track recordholder or something.

Good call Doug, Zardana is a funny horse....**** she won for McAnnaly how bad can she be?

And won a stakes race with Aaron Gryder up on her 3rd best surface no less!

I just wish I had a better gauge of how good those older ALW males at Gavea might be.

In hindsight, awesome race horses like Riboletta, Pico Centrel, and Leroidesanmeaux don't come from places "somewhere between Beulah Park and Penn National" .. and even assuming they did, Zardana's 2yo dirt speed figures in Brazil would be good enough to win Grade 1's in the USA.

She's a nice little dirt horse - and Shirriffs is leathal when pointing for a spot. They really laid the sausage deep into Asmussen's anal cavity today.

interesting way of putting it, but who doesn't enjoy the assman losing?

Zardana's lifetime form in Brazil - all at Gavea ...




The champion Riboletta's Gavea form:




Her peak American form: