Zafonic, who was produced from The Minstrel mare Zaizafon, stood the Northern Hemisphere season at Juddmonte's Banstead Manor in England. He was England's Horse of the Year as a 3-year-old in 1993 and sired 26 stakes winners. His son Ibn Al Haitham won the Saranac (gr. IIIT) at Saratoga five days before his death.
Zafonic died Sept. 7 from injuries suffered in an accident at Arrowfield Stud in the Hunter Valley near Scone in New South Wales, Australia. The 12-year-old son of Gone West had arrived in Australia only three weeks earlier to begin his first Southern Hemisphere season at Arrowfield. He had covered only a handful of mares at his new residence before his death.Arrowfield, under the chairmanship of John Messara, obtained Zafonic for Southern Hemisphere duty from Khalid Abdullah's Juddmonte Farms as a late replacement for End Sweep. The latter died three months earlier while standing in Japan.