Tales from the Crib: Final Gambit

Apr 20, 2025 Kellie Reilly/Brisnet.com

Final Gambit is ready for his close-up at Churchill Downs (Photo by Horsephotos.com)

Kentucky Derby (G1) contender Final Gambit won’t be the only classic hope racing for Juddmonte on the first Saturday in May. Hours before post time at Churchill Downs, the late Prince Khalid Abdullah’s star-studded operation will send out the projected favorite in the first British classic of the season, the 2000 Guineas (G1), on the ancient turf at Newmarket.

It’s a testimony to the enduring depth and quality of Juddmonte’s program, going on for nearly a half-century now, that Final Gambit has a pedigree connection not only to the 2025 Guineas favorite – Field of Gold – but also to one of Prince Khalid’s most illustrious Guineas winners, Zafonic (1993).

Zafonic had Zoom long before we ever did! 🐎💨@NewmarketRace @JuddmonteFarms pic.twitter.com/NhaAquAN97

— Racing TV (@RacingTV) April 30, 2022

Final Gambit’s maternal grandmother, Hachita, is closely related to Zafonic as his three-quarter sister. Europe’s unbeaten champion two-year-old of 1992, Zafonic exuded class with a course record-breaking victory in the following year’s 2000 Guineas.

Zafonic’s full brother, Zamindar, was a smart performer himself, if not reaching the same heights. But Zamindar has made a profound contribution through his daughters, including the late Aga Khan’s Zarkava, the undefeated champion of the 2008 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe (G1), and Juddmonte’s own French classic heroine, Zenda.

It's not every day you turn 3⃣0⃣! Born on 7th April 1994, we wish ZAMINDAR a very Happy Birthday🎂🥕🍏 pic.twitter.com/dA7nWxf5ZT

— Juddmonte (@JuddmonteFarms) April 7, 2024

As a broodmare, Zenda produced champion miler and outstanding stallion Kingman, the sire of current Guineas favorite Field of Gold. Juddmonte could have as many as three runners in the 2000 Guineas, with Cosmic Year and Jonquil also under consideration for the Newmarket classic. Cosmic Year is another Kingman colt, while Jonquil hails from the same female line as Juddmonte’s unbeaten phenom Frankel, who put on an electrifying display in the 2011 Guineas.

Frankel and Zafonic are just two of Juddmonte’s five winners of the 2000 Guineas. Their honor roll includes Chaldean (2023), a son of Frankel; the all-time great Dancing Brave (1986); and Known Fact (1980), Prince Khalid’s first-ever classic winner, who was awarded the victory when the stewards disqualified Nureyev.

Ironically, Juddmonte’s only Kentucky Derby win so far also came via disqualification, as Mandaloun was elevated in 2021. If their 2000 Guineas history is any portent, Juddmonte is bound to win the Kentucky Derby outright sooner or later as well.

Like Mandaloun, Final Gambit is trained by Brad Cox. But the two have taken very different routes to Louisville. Mandaloun raced exclusively on dirt and earned his way in through the Road to the Kentucky Derby at Fair Grounds. In contrast, Final Gambit has yet to race on dirt, and he punched his ticket in the Jeff Ruby Steaks (G3) on the synthetic Tapeta at Turfway Park.

In fact, during the winter, another Juddmonte/Cox colt sported a profile reminiscent of Mandaloun – Disco Time. He too had won both starts as a juvenile and joined the Derby trail at Fair Grounds. Disco Time actually did better than Mandaloun by winning the Lecomte (G3), but he was sidelined before he could advance to the bigger preps.

🕺🌹 Disco Time earns 20 points towards the Kentucky Derby in the G3 Lecomte at @fairgroundsnola!

Back-to-back stakes win for both @bradcoxracing and @flothejock.

🎥 TwinSpiresReplay pic.twitter.com/8z3Z43oMMs

— TwinSpires Racing 🏇 (@TwinSpires) January 18, 2025

In one of those curious plot twists in racing, Final Gambit ended up blossoming through the spring and emerging as a proper Derby candidate.

Final Gambit and Disco Time are by the same sire, Not This Time, himself a son of “Iron Horse” Giant’s Causeway. Both are out of A.P. Indy-line mares. Disco Time’s mother, multiple stakes-winning sprinter Disco Chick, is by Jump Start, while Final Gambit is out of Pachinko, by the great patriarch Tapit.

Yet the two descend from markedly contrasting female lines. Pennsylvania-bred Disco Chick was an auction purchase, while Final Gambit’s family has been cultivated by Juddmonte for generations.

As his maternal connection to Zafonic and Zamindar suggests, Final Gambit belongs to a turf-oriented family. Their ancestress, British-bred Mofida, was acquired from another legend of the European bloodstock industry, the late Robert Sangster.

Mofida was at that time in foal to The Minstrel, Sangster’s hero of the 1977 Epsom Derby (G1). The resulting filly, Zaizafon, would become a vital part of Prince Khalid’s nascent operation. So was another daughter of Mofida, the prolific Modena, whose tribe includes 1997 Epsom Oaks (G1) vixen Reams of Verse, Elmaamul, and 2009 Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf (G1) heroine Midday.

Zaizafon showed talent on the racecourse, winning a Group 3 event and placing third to high-class males Shadeed and Teleprompter in the 1985 Queen Elizabeth II (G2) at Ascot. She excelled as a broodmare, foaling Zafonic and Zamindar (by Gone West) as well as the French stakes-winning filly Choice Spirit (by Danzig).

Choice Spirit was initially trained by the maestro Andre Fabre, like her famous half-brothers. She was sent stateside to continue her career for the late Hall of Famer Bobby Frankel, but did not add much to her resume by placing in a series of Southern California allowances.

When Choice Spirit was retired from racing, she logically started her broodmare career by visiting Gone West. Their daughter, Hachita, won twice in England under the tutelage of the late Sir Henry Cecil (who would train the equine Frankel).

Although she could not manage to achieve any black-type, Hachita later lived up to her pedigree by producing five stakes performers, notably French Group 1 winner Announce and classic-placed Mexican Gold. (Breeders’ Cup fans might remember that Announce was a prime threat in the 2011 Filly & Mare Turf at Churchill, only to have a mishap in the post parade and get scratched at the gate.)

Announce and Mexican Gold were both members of Fabre’s academy, as was their half-sister Pachinko, who would become the mother of Final Gambit. Fabre regarded Pachinko well enough early on to make her eligible for the fillies’ classics, but she never made it that far up the class ladder. Taking longer to break her maiden than envisioned, she went winless from four tries in France. Pachinko resurfaced in the U.S. with Cox in 2018 and finally broke through in a romp on the Ellis Park turf.

Garrett O’Rourke, general manager of Juddmonte USA, described Pachinko as “sound and honest here.”

With her objective to win accomplished, Pachinko joined the broodmare band and visited Juddmonte’s Hall of Famer Arrogate. Their son, a gray like both parents, was named Havildar. He started out promisingly with Cox, rolling by 7 1/4 lengths on the dirt at Horseshoe Indianapolis, but eventually got sold.

After the untimely passing of Arrogate, Pachinko was bred to Not This Time. She delivered another gray colt, whom we know as Final Gambit, on Feb. 21, 2022.

“Final Gambit was an easy keeper as a baby and yearling,” O’Rourke recalled.

He “grew bigger than expected from foal (average-sized 118-pound foal) to yearling and yearling to two-year-old and now has filled into his frame from two-year-old to three-year-old. I say bigger than expected as Pachinko is a pretty mare, but not tall and strong-boned like him.”

O’Rourke added further insights into how the family can vary noticeably in size.

“Pachinko’s Group 1-winning half-sister Announce was a great big filly, and Group 1-placed Mexican Gold was a very small filly,” he noted. “Going back to Zaizafon, Zafonic, Zamindar, and Mofida, they were all big and very imposing individuals, and I could see Final Gambit fitting in their physical category.”

Final Gambit’s physical development is the key that explains why he suddenly flew onto the Derby radar, and presumably why he’s training with far greater exuberance on the dirt now than he did last fall.

Unraced until November, Final Gambit debuted over a mile on the Churchill Downs turf and rallied from the back of the pack for third. He missed by only a half-length in his next try at Turfway, setting himself up for a pair of last-to-first wins on the Tapeta track. Although he was much the best in a Feb. 15 maiden, Final Gambit was even more convincing on the class hike in the Jeff Ruby Steaks.

Final Gambit secured a spot in the Kentucky Derby with 100 points in the bank, but he was no sure thing to enter the starting gate. The Juddmonte brain trust doesn’t get carried away by Derby fever, preferring to remain realistic and place their horses in the most suitable races. Final Gambit still had to show that he was capable of running up to a high level on dirt. If he displayed little appetite for the surface in his morning works, there wouldn’t be much reason to believe that he’d raise his game on raceday.

Thus the past few weeks of training have been crucial in determining his Derby status, and Final Gambit has responded. Taking to the Churchill dirt zestfully, he’s pleasing Cox so much that his connections are persuaded to give him his once-in-a-lifetime chance at the roses.

Given Juddmonte’s well-reasoned policy, it’s no surprise that their horses have tended to run well in the Derby. Prince Khalid himself had just five runners in a 25-year span, but three placed – Aptitude (2000) was runner-up to Fusaichi Pegasus as an 11-1 shot, favored Empire Maker (2003) played second fiddle to Funny Cide, and Tacitus (2019) was promoted to third via disqualification.

Since Prince Khalid’s passing in January 2021, his family has carefully maintained, and furthered, his legacy. Only one horse has competed in the Derby for his heirs, Mandaloun, and Final Gambit will be the second. That might be interpreted as a tip in itself.