By Andrea Branchini
The winner of the GI Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf was named by her fortunate owner after a Sardinian wine company, according to her trainer–the great James Fanshawe of Pegasus Stables in Newmarket.
Among the wines that the Audarya winery produces are their versions of the increasingly popular Cannonau (red, goes well with red meats, separates the men from the boys) and old stalwart Vermentino (white, goes with seafood and cheeses, separates the female side in all of us).
The winery website states that “Audarya means 'nobility of the soul' in an ancient oriental language” (probably Sanskrit, the “link language” of the Orient). As the horse is often called “the noble animal,” the name is fitting and inspired. In vino veritas.
MAKER'S MARK BREEDERS' CUP FILLY AND MARE TURF-GI, $1,840,000, Keeneland, 11-7, 3yo/up, f/m, 1 3/16mT, 1:52.72 (NCR), fm.
1–AUDARYA (FR), 124, f, 4, by Wootton Bassett (GB)
1st Dam: Green Bananas (Fr), by Green Tune
2nd Dam: Anabaa Republic (Fr), by Anabaa
3rd Dam: Gigawatt, by Double Bed (Fr)
(€125,000 Ylg '17 AROYRG). O-A. M. Swinburn; B-S.A.R.L. Haras D'Ecouves (FR); T-J. R. Fanshawe; J-Pierre-Charles Boudot. $1,040,000. Lifetime Record: G1SW-Fr, 13-5-4-1, $1,229,046.
An Italian native, Andrea Branchini now lives in Lexington, Ky., where he works in the equine transport industry.
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