Urban Sea, winner of the 1993 Ciga Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe (Fr-I) and a Broodmare of the Year in England and Ireland, died March 2 at the Irish National Stud following foaling complications. The 20-year-old daughter of Miswaki produced a healthy Invincible Spirit colt, which has been placed on a nurse mare and is reported to be doing well.
“Everybody at the stud is absolutely gutted,” said farm stallion nominations manager Julie Lynch about the mare who produced seven stakes winners. “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.”
Bred by Marystead Farm, Urban Sea was foaled at Craig and Holly Bandoroff’s Denali Stud near Paris, Ky. She was sent the year of her birth to Haras d’Etreham in France. The following year, she was consigned by that farm to the Deauville sale, where she was bought for $47,796.
Racing for Hong Kong businessman David Tsui, Urban Sea stunned the international crowd at Longchamp the first Sunday of October 1993 with an Arc triumph at 37-1 over English invader White Muzzle. She was assigned the top weight on the French Free Handicap for older mares at 11 to 14 furlongs.
Urban Sea also raced in England, Germany, Japan, and North America. Her best showing in North America was a runner-up effort in the 1992 E.P. Taylor Stakes (gr. IIT) at Woodbine.
Urban Sea earned her Broodmare of the Year titles in 2001, the year her 3-year-old son, Galileo, was voted a Cartier Award and was an English and Irish champion. By Sadler's Wells, Galileo won that year’s Vodafone Epsom Derby (Eng-I), Budweiser Irish Derby (Ire-I), and the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes (Eng-I).
From the cover of Sadler’s Wells, Urban Sea also produced group winners All Too Beautiful and Black Sam Bellamy. The latter was an Italian champion and a group I winner in Italy and Ireland.
Urban Sea, who was out of the Lombard mare Allegretta, also was the dam of Irish champion Urban Ocean, Saratoga grade I winner My Typhoon, 2008 Irish group II winner Sea The Stars, and English stakes winner Melikah.
My Typhoon, who won the 2007 Diana Stakes (gr. IT) at the Spa, set a world record for a weanling filly when sold for $1.8 million guineas ($2,942,730) at the 2002 Tattersalls November foal sale. Consigned by the Irish National Stud, she was bought by Michael Youngs, agent for Charlotte Weber’s Live Oak Stud.
