Ruby Walsh: Zavateri proves that among the deep-pocketed Goliaths, there's always a David
Zavateri (right) and Gstaad battle it out at the Curragh. File picture: Healy Racing
It is hard to believe that by the time racing finishes at Punchestown on Tuesday, October will have staged as many race meetings in Ireland in its first 14 days as there will be in the whole month of December.
I don’t know why October has more racing than any other month, but it does, and racing professionals are clocking up the miles. It is a little daft that geographically some of the double meetings don't have a better spread. It was bizarre on Thursday to watch Thurles and Tramore racing on the same day.
Today will feel even weirder with Naas and Fairyhouse going head to head, and even if the codes are different, surely both are drawing from the one pool of possible attendees.
That said, what happens on these shores this afternoon will fall into the back pages of the trade papers, as all eyes will be turned to Newmarket for the Dewhurst and Cesarewitch card.
The Dewhurst is often seen as a 2000 Guineas trial for next May, but in reality, it is very much a Group 1 in its own right and worth winning for the merit it carries. The big guns are out: Coolmore v Godolphin, Gstaad v Distant Storm, but there is a David in the mix too, trying to challenge the Goliaths.
As the judges on the powerful teams at Godolphin and Coolmore strode around Newmarket's Park Paddocks this week at the Book One Yearling Sales, wondering which or what they would buy, Eve Johnson Houghton was lurking to see what might fall through the cracks.
Budgets dictate anyone’s spending power in any walk of life, and while Coolmore and Godolphin will often clash when the numbers get to seven digits, Eve has left the ring when they reach six. They are different entities working on various scales and looking for different things: some want potential stallions; others want brilliant racehorses.
In 2023, MV Magnier splashed out £450,000 on a foal by Starspangledbanner at Newmarket's December foal sales. I don't know if Eve Johnson Houghton was even at that sale but, at that money, she was not a contender. Godolphin would have been and didn't purchase. That foal turned out to be Gstaad.
During the first week of last October, a Night Of Thunder colt walked through the Newmarket sales ring during the Book One segment of the sale and was knocked down to CF bloodstock for £90k.
Godolphin and Coolmore could have had him, so too could Eve, but most potential purchasers overlooked him because of the shape of his hind legs. He was a bargain with his pedigree, but with his physical conformation, he was a gamble.
Seven months later, he returned to the sales ring at the Arqana Breeze-Up Sale at Deauville, where he galloped like a cheetah, and Godolphin gave €1.9 million for him. He is Distant Storm.
When Book Two began at Newmarket in the second week of last October, Eve Johnson Houghton and a couple of hundred other trainers and pin hookers scoured Park Paddocks for any value or potential they could find.
These are shark-infested waters, with dealers and traders all trying to find the same value with the same budgets, which have a limit.
Eve paid 35k pounds for a colt by Without Parole and headed home with a dream that has turned into a fairytale because she had bought Zavateri.
Gstaad has run four times and won twice, including the Coventry Stakes at Royal Ascot. He is worth every penny now and more of the £450k he cost.
Distant Thunder has run three times and won twice but still needs to deliver in a Group 1 to be worth his €1.9 million.
Zavateri has run four times, winning all four and beating Gstaad in the Group 1 National Stakes over 7f at the Curragh last time out.
He is worth many multiples of his £35k purchase price, but he is also worth more than that. He is the rare one that the majority of trainers dream of finding. He holds up the entire middle market for breeders because most purchasers play in his price bracket.
He is the horse that proves anyone can see the real deal, and Eve Johnson Houghton proves that if you have the talent, more than a few can train it.
His size most likely put more people off him as a yearling because he is not big, but just like Joe Murphy getting Cercene for €50k, good things come in small packages if you can see the potential.
On August 23 2009, Bobby O’Ryan gave £46k for a colt by Iffraaj at the Doncaster St Leger yearling sale. Richard Fahey trained him to win all five of his two-year-old starts, including a Group 1 in Longchamp on Arc day, and although he ran at three, he never again won.
However, even then, nobody could foresee where he would eventually end up or have imagined he would stand for €300,000 per cover by the time he reached the height of his powers.
Wootton Bassett started with low expectations, just the simple hope that he would win a race or two but ended as a colossus at stud.
I don't know where Zavateri will finish up, but if he wins the Dewhurst today, he will have dented the stallion potential of two others and enhanced his own. He will be a dual Group-winning two-year-old and most likely crowned champion.
Either way, £35k will only buy you a hair from his tail if he does collect, or he is a Euro Millions lotto ticket and you're waiting on the last ball with your number to come out.
He was bought to win a few races but is on the cusp of being a winning Euro Millions lotto ticket, not just a National one.
