NEWS
Pedigree Profile: Allegretta
Posted: Saturday, July 21, 2001
Allegretta's family has produced three European classic winners in two years
When Nazi Germany invaded and conquered France in 1940, Adolph Hitler's storm troopers did not confine their looting to great works of art. The German army also confiscated many of the most valuable Thoroughbreds in France and transferred them to its stud at Altefeld, Germany.
At the top of the army's wish list was Marcel Boussac's Pharis II, generally considered the best horse bred in France between the two world wars. By Pharos out of Carissima, by Clarissimus, Pharis II won his only three starts at three in France in spectacular style, including easy victories in the 1939 Prix du Jockey-Club (French Derby) and Grand Prix de Paris. His racing career was cut short by Germany's invasion of Poland in September 1939, just days before he was scheduled to challenge English champion Blue Peter in the St. Leger Stakes.
Pharis II stood one season in France before his capture by the Germans, but that crop of only 13 foals included champions *Ardan, *Priam II, and Palencia and made him leading sire in France in 1944. Pharis II topped the French sire list three more times (1950-'52) after his repatriation to France in 1945.
Despite his great record as a sire in France, Pharis II sired only one top-class runner during his five years of captivity in Germany. That horse was Asterblute, a big, blaze-faced bay filly out of Aster, by the great German champion Oleander. Asterblute won three German classics in 1949, including the Deutsches Derby and Preis der Diana (German Oaks).
Boussac, despite the obvious danger to his survival, had adamantly refused to sign papers transferring Pharis II to German ownership, and after the war international stud book authorities honored his insistence that none of the foals conceived by Pharis II in Germany could be registered anywhere else. Service certificates required Boussac's signature because he was the stallion's owner of record, but he refused to sign them.
Thus, until Boussac finally agreed to allow certain foals by Pharis II to be entered into the international canon in the 1970s, neither Asterblute nor any of her offspring could be registered as Thoroughbreds anywhere but in Germany. Asterblute produced only two foals, both fillies, but her daughter Alameda, by Magnat, founded a thriving German family.
Alameda's daughter Almyra, by Birkhahn, produced three stakes winners, including the good colt Antuco, by *Espresso, winner of the 1975 Bayern-Preis. Almyra's daughter Alzyra, by *Orsini II, is dam of 1978 German juvenile champion filly Alaria, by Kaiseradler.
By far the best branch of the family, though, descends from Antuco's stakes-placed full sister Anatevka, dam of 1982 German champion three-year-old Anno, by Lombard. In turn, Anno's stakes-placed full sister, Allegretta (GB), a 1978 filly by Lombard, has raised this once-controversial German family to the absolute pinnacle of international breeding.
Promise unfulfilled
Bred in England by Germany's premier breeding establishment, the Oppenheim family's Gestut Schlenderhan, Allegretta was trained by Sir Michael Stoute. She showed great promise at two but was never able to fulfill the high hopes held for her.
Stoute prefers to give his horses easy introductions to racing, so the tall, lightly made filly made her debut in a mile maiden race at provincial Leicester in October 1980, winning easily by 2 1/2 lengths. She followed with a three-length victory over More Stones in a nine-furlong allowance race at Wolverhampton. In her final start at two, she was beaten 1 1/2 lengths by Krug in the Zetland Stakes, a ten-furlong race that is now a listed stakes.
Stoute's horses almost always improve with age, but Allegretta never won another race. She ran well enough in her first start at three, finishing second by three lengths to the high-class filly Leap Lively in the 1981 Oaks Trial Stakes (Eng-G3), but her temperament deteriorated seriously after that. Nervous and overwrought before the Epsom Oaks (Eng-G1), she finished last. Drenched with sweat before the Park Hill Stakes (Eng-G2) in September, she declined to exert herself once again despite the addition of blinkers.
Twice sold
Schlenderhan already had a number of broodmares from Asterblute's family, so it sold the disappointing Allegretta for 24,000 guineas ($48,600) at the 1981 Tattersalls December sale. Allegretta raced three times in the United States for Big E Farm and trainer Bruce Smith at four, but the best she could do was a third in an allowance race over the vastly inadequate distance of six furlongs on turf at Suffolk Downs.
Taylor Made Sales Agency as agent for Big E Farm consigned Allegretta to the 1984 Keeneland November sale, where Robert Nataf of Horse France purchased her for $55,000 on behalf of Michel Henochsberg's Marystead Farm.
Henochsberg later told Paris-Turf: "She was a useful race filly who gave the impression of not having much heart ... but she descended from an exceptional family. ... I went to look at her. She is not elegant, but she has an exceptional body. I was seduced."
Allegretta's first four foals, fillies by Irish Castle and Plugged Nickle and geldings by Irish River (Fr) and Shadeed, were all modest racehorses, and some displayed Allegretta's doubtful temperament. But her fifth foal, Urban Sea, by Miswaki, was a far different story.
Purchased by trainer Jean Lesbordes on behalf of David Tsui and partners for only 280,000 francs ($50,770) at the 1990 Deauville yearling sale, Urban Sea gradually improved into a top-class filly at middle distances. Winner of a maiden race at two, she captured the rich listed Prix Piaget d'Or at Deauville at three and ran third in the Prix Vermeille (Fr-G1). Urban Sea surpassed herself at four with a longshot victory in the 1993 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe (Fr-G1), in which she outran 14 Group 1 winners headed by White Muzzle (GB), Opera House (GB), and Intrepidity.
Rated the best older mare in Europe at four, Urban Sea trained on to win the Prix d'Harcourt (Fr-G2) at five. She has been a gold mine at stud. Her first foal, Urban Ocean, by Bering (GB), sold for $390,240 at the 1997 Tattersalls Houghton sale and won the Gallinule Stakes (Ire-G3) at three. Urban Ocean was top weighted on the Irish Free Handicap at 91Ú2 to 11 furlongs at three.
Urban Sea's second foal, Melikah (Ire), by Lammtarra, topped the 1998 Deauville sale on a $1,662,000 bid by Gainsborough Stud. Melikah made only four starts but won the Pretty Polly Stakes and ran second in the Kildangan Stud Irish Oaks (Ire-G1) and third in the Epsom Oaks.
Three classic winners
Urban Sea's third foal, Galileo, by Sadler's Wells, was bred by John Magnier's Orpendale and Tsui. The colt is undefeated in five starts to date, including the Epsom Derby (Eng-G1) and Irish Derby (Ire-G1). Clearly the outstanding three-year-old in England and Ireland this year, Galileo is expected to challenge Point Given in the Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) this fall.
Perhaps Galileo's main competition for leadership of Europe's middle-distance three-year-olds is his close relative Anabaa Blue, winner of the 2001 Prix du Jockey-Club (Fr-G1). By Danzig's son Anabaa, Anabaa Blue is the second foal of Allegretta's seventh foal, Allez Les Trois, by Riverman.
This is the first time that half sisters have produced the winners of the French and English Derbys in the same year. Anabaa Blue and Galileo are most likely to meet in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes (Eng-G1) on July 28.
Although she entered the Deauville sales ring on the same day that Urban Sea won the Piaget d'Or, Allez Les Trois drew little interest. She was retained by Henochsberg, who joined with Marc de Chambure and Maurice Lagasse in a partnership known as M3 Elevage. Though not as talented as Urban Sea, Allez Les Trois won three of her 16 races in France and the U.S., including the 1994 Prix de Flore (Fr-G3). M3 Elevage sold Anabaa Blue for $105,755 at the 1999 Deauville sale.
Allegretta's 11th foal, King's Best, by Kingmambo, was purchased for $381,570 by agent Charles Gordon-Watson on behalf of Saeed Suhail at the 1998 Deauville sale. Trained by Stoute, King's Best was enormously talented but just as temperamental as his dam. King's Best won his first two starts at two, including the Acomb Stakes, but he lost his cool in the paddock when favored in the Dewhurst Stakes (Eng-G1) and finished fifth. He was anxious again before his three-year-old debut in the Craven Stakes (Eng-G3) and was beaten a half-length by Umistim.
In the 2000 Two Thousand Guineas (Eng-G1), however, King's Best produced a devastating turn of foot in the final furlong, sailing right past the brilliant Giant's Causeway to win England's first classic easily by three lengths in the style of a top-class miler. Forced to miss the Epsom Derby due to a pulled muscle, King's Best fractured his right front cannon bone in the Irish Derby, forcing his retirement to Kildangan Stud.
Allegretta's only subsequent foal, Altruiste, a 1999 Diesis (GB) filly, was sold for $1,243,800 to Patricia Boutin's Suprina agency at the 2000 Deauville yearling sale and has not started this year.
New family
Allegretta is inbred 4x4 to the great German sire Alchimist, 4x5 to Asterblute's dam Aster, and 5x4 to 1935 English Triple Crown winner *Bahram. Given that her German pedigree is an outcross for just about anything, it is not surprising that except for Anabaa Blue (inbred 4x2 to Riverman) all of her top-class descendants are much less closely inbred.
Few if any mares have ever been responsible for three European classic winners within a two-year span. The achievement of Allegretta and her daughters harks back to the formative days of the breed when the epochal broodmare Prunella and her daughters and granddaughters produced 16 English classic winners over a quarter-century.
Given the exponentially higher level of competition in the modern context, it is beyond imagining that the family of Allegretta will create a similar explosion. One thing is clear, however. The tall, plain mare who fell out of love with racing early has founded a family all her own.
John P. Sparkman is bloodstock/sales editor of Thoroughbred Times.
