Zabeel and the Melbourne Cup

Look at the breeding in the formguide for any major staying race in Australia and the chances are good that you will see the name Zabeel as the sire of one or more runners. Zabeel was foaled in 1986 and will turn 24 this year but will stand another season at Sir Patrick Hogan’s Cambridge Stud in New Zealand. He has sired over 40 individual Group 1 winners , over 130 individual stakes winners, and is the leading sire of Group One winners in Australasia this season. His 2009-10 Group 1 winners are Efficient (Turnbull Stakes), Jessicabeel (Sydney Cup) Zabrasive (Rosehill Guineas) and Zavite (Auckland Cup).

Zabeel has many accolades including Champion Australian Sire (twice), Champion New Zealand Sire (four times) and winner of the Dewar Award for combined Australian and NZ earnings (13 times). He has sired several Derby, Oaks and Cups winners and in 2010 has been recognized with the Kingston Town Greatness Award by the Moonee Valley Racing Club for his “undeniable dominance as the WS Cox Plate’s most influential sire throughout its 88 year history”. His four Cox winners are Octagonal (1992), Might and Power (1998), Savabeel (2004) and Maldivian (2008).

Three Melbourne Cup winners have been sired by Zabeel. The first was Might and Power in 1997, while the following year the tough mare Jezabeel gave him back-to-back wins. In 2007 Efficient became his third Melbourne Cup winner. It is little surprise that owners and trainers are quietly mustering Zabeel’s progeny for an assault on the 150th Melbourne Cup. Trainer John O’Shea is targeting both Jessicabeel and Zabrasive for this year’s Melbourne Cup while Canadian diamond magnate Chuck Fipke has been buying Zabeel horses and sent a top-class mare to Zabeel with the long-term goal of breeding his own Zabeel Melbourne Cup winner.

It is now less than a hundred days to the 2010 Melbourne Cup and time for the stayers to get some runs under their belt.

Jo Jackson

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