URBAN SEA : THE BLUEST OF BLUE HENS

Urban Sea
(Photo : Irish National Stud)

URBAN SEA : THE BROODMARE

In horse breeding, the great mare (or stallion) is as elusive as the needle in the haystack. While most of us like to believe we’re on the scent of one, truth is they are as much a product of happenstance as they are of design. Such a mare is Urban Sea.

The progeny of Urban Sea, who died earlier this year at the age of 20, have landed many of the world’s most prestigious prizes, but until Sunday none had emulated their mother by winning the G1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. That changed when Sea the Stars went postward in Europe’s richest turf race as the heavy favorite.

Although she remains one of the most influential broodmares in modern history, the story of Urban Sea had humble origins. French breeder Michel Henochsberg needed only approximately $55,000 to acquire her dam Allegretta (GB) (Lombard), who was in foal to Irish Castle, at the 1984 KEENOV sale.

I wanted to buy [Alegretta] because she was quite a good performer,” said Henochsberg, the former chairman of the French and European Breeders’ Associations. “She was second in the [G3] Oaks Trial Stakes at Lingfield. She ran in the Oaks, but she was quite nervous - she was on her toes - and she didn’t perform well. She was sold to the United States, but she didn’t do much there, and they put her in the sale in foal to Irish Castle.”

It wasn’t just Allegretta’s racetrack performance that caught Henochsberg’s attention.

She was out of a fantastic German family that was not fashionable at the time,” he said. “I knew the main bloodlines in Europe, including those in smaller countries like Italy and Germany. This mare was coming from the “A” family, where the mares’ names start with the letter “A”.

“It’s the blood of the stud Gestut Schlenderhan.”

Her first three foals were unremarkable, with handicap horse Irish Allegre (Irish River {Fr}) being the best of the lot. That all changed when Henochsberg decided to send Allegretta to a son of Mr. Prospector.

[Irish Allegre] was a decent horse, but he was not brilliant,” he said. “The entire German family consisted of stayers, and I wanted some Mr. Prospector blood. At that time, he represented speed, at least for Europeans. Miswaki was a good performer in France, and he was a winner at seven furlongs.”

“[Miswaki] was starting to become quite highly regarded in the United States, as he was standing for $40,000 at Walmac Farm. Miswaki was not a big horse. Allegretta was a big mare - workmanlike.”

Getting a season to Miswaki wasn’t easy, but Henochsberg was able to obtain one from then bloodstock agent Barry Weisbord. The resulting foal was a chestnut filly.

“[Urban Sea] had a good structure and a good frame,” Henochsberg recalled. “She was not unfurnished, but she was not the most pleasant yearling. She was a very good walker and a good athlete.”

Like all other horses bred by Henochsberg at the time, she was sold at auction.

Henochsberg set a reserve of FF280,000 (about $50,000) when he offered her at the Deauville Yearling Sale, and she sold for that exact price.

“One bid less, and I would have kept her,” he noted.

Henochsberg admitted Urban Sea’s racing success surprised him, as she took the 1993 G1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe en route to being named France’s highweight older mare at 11-14 furlongs.

“As a two-year-old, [Urban Sea] was nothing much,” he said. “As a three-year-old, she was a good group winner. At four, she became a champ. She was always very useful, but she improved. She had a big, big heart. She didn’t really have the structure to be a champion, but she wanted to win.”

Henochsberg, having missed the chance to campaign Urban Sea, attempted to buy an interest in her as a broodmare prospect.

“I had become friends with her current owner, Mrs. Tsui,” he said. “I proposed we make a partnership, breeding her on a foal share to Nureyev, who was one of the most expensive stallions in the U.S.

“We were very close to completing this deal, but she changed her mind.”

While fate worked against Henochsberg with Urban Sea, luck was on his side when he tried to sell Allegretta’s sixth foal, Allez Les Trois (Riverman). She failed to meet her reserve of FF550,000, and she would go on to win the G3 Prix de Flore and finish third in the G3 Saratoga Breeders’ Cup Handicap. As a broodmare, Allez Les Trois produced the 2001 G1 Prix du Jockey Club winner Anabaa Blue (GB) (Anabaa). Turbaine (Trempolino), also out of Allegretta, produced MGSW Tertullian (Miswaki) and GSW Terek (Ger) (Irish River {Fr}).

Allegretta saved one of her best runners for her later years when, in 1997, she foaled the eventual G1 English 2000 Guineas winner King’s Best (Kingmambo). Pensioned after coming up barren in 2000 and 2001, Allegretta died in 2005 at the age of 27. Despite having passed on, Allegretta’s impact on the breed has been guaranteed by Urban Sea, whose son by Sadler’s Wells, Galileo (Ire), has established himself as one of the finest young stallions in the world. Her son Black Sam Bellamy (Ire) (Sadler’s Wells) plies his trade in Germany. Stud plans for Sea the Stars have yet to be determined.

Henochsberg, a professor of economics at the University of Paris, credits Urban Sea for Sea the Stars’ brilliance.

“Sea the Stars looks like a typical Cape Cross or Green Desert,” he said. “He’s a very handsome colt with a lot of power, but obviously there is something inside that comes from Urban Sea. This mixture seems to be something great. I hope I’ll have another filly like her, but it’s very doubtful.”

Extract from Thoroughbred Daily News

THE INVESTEC ENGLISH DERBY (GR.1)

Sea The Stars
Investec Derby 2009
(Photo : Associated Press)

“A TWENTY YEAR FEAT IN A THIRTY-SEVEN YEAR GAP”

Saturday’s smashing victory in the greatest Derby of them all, the one at Epsom Downs in England, by Sea The Stars was a moment to remember. Not only for the majestic way he did it, but as much for the fact that it was the first time in twenty years that a horse had completed the Guineas/Derby double, an achievement that recalls the monumental Nashwan, owned and bred by long-time Summerhill patron, His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum.

Not only that, if our memory has anything to do with the truth, you’d have to go back 37 years to the mare Windmill Girl and the half brothers Morston (by Ragusa) and Blakeney (by Heatherset) to recall a broodmare with the distinction of having produced two winners of the Derby. That’s what the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe heroine, Urban Sea managed on Saturday.

Sea The Stars, (by the Darley stallion Cape Cross) is a half brother to Europe’s champion sire of the moment Galileo, who was equally convincing on his big day at Epsom in 2001. For the record, this was Cape Cross’ eighth Grade One winner, and it’s appropriate to recall the names of the world champion filly Ouija Board and the New Zealand champion, Sea Change, among Cape Cross’ standouts in this elite group.

Pedigree watchers of the Summerhill offerings in the past few months will know that we have on hand (and still for sale) a yearling relative of Galileo and Sea The Stars in Sheikh Hamdan’s Ezzah, (one of just two unsold lots at this year’s National Yearling Sale,) as well as the Cape Cross colt, Cebolami, a juvenile who was the victim of several setbacks as a youngster, but who appears to be in pretty tidy shape now). He’s a lovely, big horse, covers ground and carries one of the best pedigrees in the book, and he’s bound to invoke some interest in the wake of the Derby outcome.

Click below to view pedigrees

Ezzah

Cebolami

URBAN SEA DEAD

Urban Sea
(Photo : Irish National Stud)

URBAN SEA, Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe heroine and mother to Sadler’s Wells’ best racing son and European leading Sire, Galileo, has died during foaling complications at the Irish National Stud. Urban Sea gave birth to a colt by Invincible Spirit who has been placed with a nurse mare.

The French filly, Urban Sea, was bred by Paul de Moussac’s Marystead Farm and was foaled in Kentucky in 1989. Her sire was Miswaki, a son of the highly influential Mr Prospector.

Urban Sea had a competitive racing career which started as a two-year-old in 1991 and included victories in the Prix de la Seine, Challenge d’Or Piaget, Prix Exbury (Gr3), Prix d’Harcourt (Gr2), Prix Gontaut-Biron (Gr3) and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe (Gr1), where she defeated fourteen Group 1 winners, before a fetlock injury retired her to stud as a five-year-old in 1994.

After retiring to stud in Ireland, Urban Sea was soon to became one of the world’s most successful broodmares. Her first foal by Bering, born in 1996, went on to win the 1999 Gallinule Stakes (Gr3) and her 1997 filly by Lammtarra was to fetch the highest price ever paid for a yearling at the 1998 Deauville Sales, a staggering EUR1,500,000.

Huge success began when Urban Sea’s owner, David Tsui, bred Urban Sea with Coolmore’s Sadler’s Wells, the result was a colt named Galileo. Galileo went on to win the Epsom Derby (Gr1), the first progeny of Sadler’s Wells to do so, the Irish Derby (Gr1) and the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes (Gr1) before being voted European Champion Three-Year-Old in 2001. We all know the success of Galileo as a sire today.

Urban Sea was bred again to Sadler’s Wells resulting in Black Sam Bellamy, winner of the Gran Premio del Jockey Club (Gr1) and the Tattersalls Gold Cup (Gr1).

In 2002 Urban Sea foaled a filly by Giant’s Causeway, named My Typhoon, who went on to fetch a record US$2,955,000 at the December Tattersalls Sale. My Typhoon has subsequently won several US Stakes races including the Diana Handicap (Gr1).

The influence of Urban Sea on the world of thoroughbred racing has spanned almost two decades and the class of this broodmare will be sorely missed.

The Summerhill team extend our sincere condolences.

NB : On a positive note and of interest is to the local market is that Lot 483 on our National Yearling Sales Draft is a Malhub filly who comes from the female line of Urban Sea. The filly is a first foal out of Modraj (By Machiavellian) out of a half sister to Darley’s King’s Best and Urban Sea.

Click here to view the pedigree of Lot 483

ZARKAVA wins Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe

Princess Zahra, His Highness The Aga Khan, Christophe Soumillon, Alain de Royer Dupre
(Stephane De Sakutin/AFP/Getty)

The Aga Khan’s homebred filly Zarkava (Ire) (Zamindar) had Longchamp holding its breath when making it a magnificent seven career wins and a fifth at the highest level in yesterday’s G1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, the world’s richest race on turf with a stake of 4 million euro.

Despite the disappointment of rain at Longchamp, and a few doubts about the filly being drawn on the inside and having her first run against colts in such an important event, she powered to victory from Youmzain (Sinndar), who filled the runner-up spot for the second consecutive year.

The punters’ patriotic bets saw her start as the even-money favorite - but she almost threw away their cash when jinking right when exiting the stalls, almost losing jockey Christophe Soumillon. Soon recovering, the bay found the gaps when it mattered and delivered her trademark acceleration to lead with a furlong remaining and surge clear under a hand ride.

Zarkava remains unbeaten in 7 starts and is the first filly to win the Arc since Urban Sea (dam of Galileo), who took the honours in 1993.

Watch Zarkava winning the 2008 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe

Pedigree Focus by Tony Morris

“FEMALE OF THE SPECIES IN THE SPOTLIGHT”
European Bloodstock News

When, some four and a half years ago, I chose the title for this feature, I was extremely conscious of its ambiguity; in fact, it was my deliberate intention that it should be open to two interpretations.

This was to be a slot where emphasis was generally placed on the distaff side of pedigrees – a weekly dissertation on some aspects of a female family that had become topical by virtue of a recent result in a major race.

But I did not mean to promote the view that pedigrees should be interpreted solely in terms of female lines. It stands to reason that a proper reading of any pedigree should give due weight to all its component parts; when science tells us that, at every mating, each parent contributes equally to the genetic make-up of their product, we are on dodgy ground if we choose to believe in direct lines as crucial to the inheritance of characteristics.

Indeed, we do not even need the evidence supplied by Mendel, and the many eminent authorities who have supplemented the knowledge that he imparted. Any amateur student of the Thoroughbred has long been able to recognise, by dint of minimal research, that male lines tend to flourish for a while, then fall into decline. It is not necessary to go back into ancient history to establish that fact; it suffices just to know how potent the lines descending from such as Hyperion and Tourbillon were 30 or 40 years ago, and to realise what is now left of them.

Similarly, it is common knowledge that female lines tend not to thrive consistently over long periods; their fortunes fluctuate, and frequently deteriorate when access to successful sires is denied them.

Furthermore, in a breeding regime which generally permits only a tiny percentage of males – those who are proven successful athletes – to procreate, but which provides that opportunity to almost all females, regardless of their performance on the racecourse, we kid ourselves when we claim that the Thoroughbred of today is the product of three centuries of selective breeding. We have selected the males for logical reasons, with performance as the chief criterion; the females have never been selected on that basis.

In truth, when we use the term ‘family matters’ in its other sense, suggesting that it has genuine importance, it is most often applicable only in terms of the commercial market. The convention of displaying catalogue pedigrees as we do has evolved precisely because the bottom line in any pedigree tends to be its weakest area. All the mares in other positions are there by reason of success in production, through descendants who have earned a right to breed; that is not necessarily the case in the direct female line, hence the need for catalogues to attempt to show just cause for those mares to feature in the breeding population.

And nobody need doubt that catalogue entries have tremendous influence on the perceptions of buyers. The amount of black type displayed on the page may make a huge difference to the value of any animal. Without question, in that sense, family matters.

In order to acquire a firm conviction that family truly matters to events on the racecourse, we probably need more weekends like the one just gone, when several big race results lent substance to the belief.

There was a Group 3 winner out of a mare who won the Oaks. Another was the third individual Pattern winner for her dam. A Group 2 winner was the second from his dam to have won at Pattern level this year.

Another successful at that level became the sixth major winner out of his dam, herself a victress of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. No less wondrous was the fact that the two Group 1 winners at Ascot were closely related in the female line – and only in the female line – the dam of one being full sister to the grand-dam of the other.

So, let’s hear it for the females of the species! Oaks heroine Love Devine’s St Leger-winning son Sixties Icon (Galileo) notched the sixth Pattern victory of a stellar career in the Cumberland Lodge Stakes. Sadima, already with Group 1-winning colts in Youmzain (Sinndar) and Creachadoir (King’s Best) to her credit, was responsible for her third notable scorer in as many years when her daughter Shreyas (Dalakhani) won the Denny Cordell Lavarack & Lanwades Stud Fillies Stakes at Gowran Park.

Mare aux Fees , who produced this year’s Prix Vanteaux winner in Belle Allure (Numerous), doubled her Pattern score for 2008 when Jukebox Jury (Montjeu) took the Royal Lodge Stakes, both having arrived in her late teenage years. And the celebrated

Urban Sea, last of her sex to have recorded a “triomphe” in the Arc, added to her outstanding record as a broodmare – exemplified by Urban Ocean (Bering), Galileo, Black Sam Bellamy, All Too Beautiful (all by Sadler’s Wells) and My Typhoon (Giant’s Causeway) – when Sea the Stars (Cape Cross) staked a claim for consideration for 2009’s Classics with his victory in the Beresford Stakes on the Curragh.

But it was surely no less remarkable that Raven’s Pass (Elusive Quality), now rated Europe’s champion miler after his dismissal of Henrythenavigator and Tamayuz in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, and Rainbow View (Dynaformer), Britain’s undefeated and undisputed champion juvenile filly after her triumph in the Fillies’ Mile, should share such a close connection in the female line.

The honours in the case of the Gosden-trained duo belong to sisters Words of War and Ascutney, respectively the 1989 and 1994 products of matings involving Lord At War (a male line grandson of the great Brigadier Gerard) and Right Word, a daughter of Verbatim from a family previously renowned for Grade 1 winners such as Danzig Connection and Pine Circle.

Right Word, who died in 2005 at the age of 23, was no great shakes as a runner herself, managing only one second place from six starts, but Words of War was a tough stakes-winner, placed twice at Grade 3 level, and Ascutney had a Grade 3 win in the Miesque Stakes to her credit. Words of War made her name as a broodmare swiftly, as her first-born was No Matter What (Nureyev), successful in the Del Mar Oaks, and next came E Dubai (Mr Prospector), a Grade 2 winner, Grade 1-placed in the Travers and Super Derby, and already a noted sire.

Ascutney already had a Grade 3 winner in Gigawatt (Wild Again) under her name before Raven’s Pass came along, while No Matter What had just one minor scorer on her CV before the emergence of the exciting Rainbow View.