Keeping It In the Family: Urban Sea Legacy Alive at Epsom

Nearly a decade after her passing, Urban Sea (Miswaki) proved to still be the Queen of the Track at Epsom during Derby weekend.

The 1993 Prix de L’Arc de Triomphe winner wasn’t only present in the pedigrees of many horses who won or placed in the three Group 1 races at the track on Friday and Saturday but also those who ran in said races with 15 runners between the Oaks and Derby descending from the mare. Four of the six entries in the Coronation Cup also traced back to the bluehen mare to give her an astounding 70.4 percent of the runners in the Group 1 races at Epsom.

Urban Sea's 1993 Arc victory

Looking at those numbers, it isn’t surprising that Urban Sea was responsible for the winners of all three races nor that in two of the races she had multiple representation in the top three. Frankel’s Cracksman was nearly beaten by Salouen (Canford Cliffs) in the Coronation Cup on Friday to get the festives started but if he would have failed to get up to the runner-up in the closing stages it still would have been a win for the mare with Salouen out of a Galileo daughter to give mother and son an exacta of sorts.

A large part of Urban Sea's legacy has been thanks to Galileo and with Aidan O’Brien and the Coolmore contingent having five of the nine runners in the Oaks, Urban Sea was again represented with Galileo having a 1st-3rd finish. In fact, Galileo can take a heap of credit for the mare’s stellar legacy with her best son turning into a supersire with over 70 Group 1 winners and well over 20 sons at stud around the world.

Galileo’s success was a large part of why Urban Sea was seen so often this weekend with five of the nine horses in the top three finding Galileo in their pedigrees as a sire, grandsire, or broodmare sire. But though Galileo is responsible for Epsom Derby winner Masar’s sire New Approach, Urban Sea’s daughter Melikah (Lammtarra) also helps Masar find another strain to the mare as his third dam. This provides Masar an intriguing 3 x 4 cross to Urban Sea, inbreeding that surprisingly isn’t found as often as one would expect in the top level of European racing.

Courtesy of Equineline
The Galileo factor also played a big part in the Northern Dancer line having so much success in the three races this weekend with the most popular line in the world accounting for seven of the nine horses in the top three. Six of those winners and placers came from the Sadler’s Wells branch of Northern Dancer’s line, Sadler’s Wells also being the sire of two other group stakes winners (and grandsire of one Oaks runner-up) out of Urban Sea.

However, unlike Urban Sea, Sadler’s Wells success on the weekend didn’t all come through one son. His influential U.S. sire El Prado gave Sadler’s Wells a 1-3 finish in the Epsom Derby when that stallion’s grandson Roaring Lion (Kitten’s Joy) finished third, two lengths behind Sadler’s Well’s great-grandson Masar.

From the seven Northern Dancer lined horses to finish in the top three, five of them are inbred to Northern Dancer through both their sire and broodmare sire. Nureyev was Northern Dancer’s only son other than Sadler’s Wells to have a top-three placer with Cracksman out of Pivotal mare, Forever Together out of a Theatrical mare and Derby runner-up Dee Ex Bee (Farhh) by a great-grandson of Nureyev.

The only horses not from the Northern Dancer sire line were Coronation third, WIndstoss (Shirocco) and Oaks runner-up Wild Illusion (Dubawi). Interestingly, those two both trace back to Tamerlane through Dschingis Khan – that line coming through influential stallion Monsun (Konigsstuhl). Wild Illusion is also one of three horses with the Mr. Prospector sire line found through either their sire or broodmare sire, the others being Derby second and third place finishers Dee Ex Bee (through broodmare sire Seeking the Gold) and Roaring Lion (through broodmare sire Street Sense).

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