NEWS
Arc winner, Grade 1 producer Urban Sea dies
Posted: Tuesday, March 03, 2009 3:20 PM
Urban Sea, the 1993 Ciga Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe (Fr-G1) winner who produced classic winner and leading sire Galileo (Ire) and two other Grade or Group 1 winners, died on Monday morning at the Irish National Stud. She was 20.
The Kentucky-bred Miswaki mare out of Allegretta (GB), by Lombard, died from foal complications after delivering a healthy Invincible Spirit colt.
“Everybody at the stud is absolutely gutted,” said Julie Lynch from the Irish National Stud. “We were all immensely proud to be associated with such an outstanding broodmare. A mare like her comes along but once in a lifetime. Her foal is such a smashing colt. He weighed in at 130 pounds and his nurse mare has accepted him without a fuss.”
Urban Sea registered her only Group 1 win in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. She was one of three female winners in the last 25 editions of the Arc.
Bred in Kentucky by Marystead Farm, Urban Sea scored three other group stakes wins in France and finished second in the 1992 E. P. Taylor Stakes (Can-G2) at Woodbine.
Urban Sea produced three foals who sold for seven-figure prices at public auction. My Typhoon (Ire), her daughter by Giant’s Causeway, set a world record for a weanling filly when she sold for $2,942,730 to Live Oak Stud in the 2002 Tattersalls Ltd. December foal sale.
My Typhoon won eight stakes races, including the 2007 Diana Stakes (G1) at Saratoga Race Course. She is one of seven stakes winners from eight starters out of the chestnut mare.
Urban Sea’s first foal, Urban Ocean, by Bering (GB), was a Group 3 winner in Ireland.
Her daughter Melikah (Ire) sold for $1,662,000 as yearling in 1998. By Lammtarra, Melikah won an English stakes race and finished third in the 2000 Vodafone Epsom Oaks (Eng-G1).
In 2001, Galileo posted wins in the Vodafone Epsom Derby (Eng-G1), Budweiser Irish Derby (Ire-G1), and King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes (Eng-G1) and was Europe’s champion three-year-old male. Galileo joined his sire, Sadler’s Wells, at Coolmore’s Irish base and led the English and Irish sire list in 2008.
Galileo’s full brother, Black Sam Bellamy, won the 2002 Gran Premio del Jockey Club (Ity-G1) and ’03 Tattersalls Gold Cup (Ire-G1). A full sister, All Too Beautiful (Ire), won a Group 3 race in England and finished second in the Epsom Oaks after bringing $1,646,106 as a weanling.
This year, Urban Sea’s son, Sea The Stars, is one of the leading contenders for the Epsom Derby after winning the 2008 Juddmonte Beresford Stakes (Ire-G2) at the Curragh.
