Zardana

[The Indomitable DrugS]

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.