Star’s winter wonderland
Cool customer Zaaki shapes to ice carnival rivals
A STAR was born when Zaaki went on a memorable winning blitz during last year’s Queensland winter carnival and trainer Annabel Neasham believes her headline horse could be in even better form this year.
She has also identified that Zaaki, set to start a hot favourite in Saturday’s Group 2 Hollindale Stakes and the Group 1 Doomben Cup a fortnight later, may be something of a winter specialist.
“I think from what I’m seeing at home that Zaaki is in as good a form now, if not better, as when he went up to Queensland last year,” Neasham said.
“Maybe he just loves this time of year.
“I couldn’t fault him too much in the spring, but he just wasn’t quite as good as he is at this time of year. For whatever reason he just seems to thrive at this time of year.
“He went to the paddock for a week after the Queen Elizabeth and when I got him of the paddock he had put on a bit of weight. He is just getting bigger and stronger, even J-Mac (James McDonald) said that when he came out and galloped him last week.”
Zaaki, who last year announced himself as a star when winning the Hollindale, romping home by seven lengths in the Doomben Cup and scoring the rich Q22, will be a major drawcard at the start of this year’s winter carnival.
Only beaten by a freak ride by Nash Rawiller on Think It Over in the Queen Elizabeth Stakes on a heavy (10) Randwick track last month, Zaaki heads to Queensland in preference over a trip to Royal Ascot.
At one stage, Neasham also considered racing Zaaki in Hong Kong. But it was the Sunshine State’s good fortune that connections were keen on Cox Plate redemption, after Zaaki was scratched on Cox Plate morning last year, and a two-run Queensland campaign fitted in best with that main mission.
“We got an email from the guys at Royal Ascot suggesting that Zaaki should come over and I was pretty keen to do that,” Neasham said. “But some of the owners were keen to keep him here.
“There is obviously great prizemoney up in Queensland and a lot of the owners are from Victoria and they are very keen to win the Cox Plate.
“He heads to Queensland in top form. Certainly his Queen Elizabeth run was massive, obviously Nash outsmarted us and Think It Over is a good horse but that was a big run from Zaaki on (heavy) ground we didn’t think he would like.”
TAB has Zaaki as the $1.80 favourite to win the Hollindale for the second consecutive year.