Urban Sea

In my first post entitled The Rachel Alexandra Dilemma I mentioned that Urban Sea was one of those rare mares that inspite of being a champion racemare was still as good as a produced as one could imagine. In that post I postulated that one of the reasons for her success as a broodmare was that she ran on grass. Mares that run on turf are much more likely to be good producers then their counterparts that compete on dirt. What is the resaon for this abnormality? It could be the difference in training Methods. Federico Tesio believed that hard racing depleted a horse of a certain vitality that it did not have to pass on to the next generation. He felt that a generation of rest was necessary to restore this vitality. The 2nd horse I bred was a colt by Go Marching. He was sent to France where he was trained by Miguel Clement who had trained two winners of the Prix Du Jockey Club (French Derby). He told me that we Americans breed 20 Sea-Birds every year, but only one survives our training methods. It could be that horses that run on dirt are subjected to training methods much more likely to drain a horse of the vitality of which Tesio spoke. It can't be proven ,but it's a rational explanation. I know that Champion racemares who compete on dirt are very unlikely to produce horses of championship caliber whereas their counterparts who race on turf are much more likely to produce horses of classic ability.



Urban Sea is one of those exceptional broodmares. There could be another explanation for her extraordinary ability. I would suggest that you look back at the post on Chauette posted 7/28/09. Take a look a Chauette's 2nd dam Quiet fun. If you don't have a program to do this go online site http://www.pedigreequery.com/quiet fun. You will find that both her sire and dam both trace to the same mare, Cequillo by Princequillo. Her grandsire Fappiano also traces to Cequillo. Then pull up a mare named Lizzie G who happens to be the 2nd dam of the great Domino. You will see the same pattern represented by three crosses of Fandango. One come from the direct female line and two more from War Dance and LeCompte.

Essentially, you could describe this as a stallion being used to reinforce his own maternal line. This happens much more in thoroughbred breeding then you might realize and the results are often profound. Some horses you might know with this pattern are Numbered Account, Relaxing, dam of Easy Goer, Mint Copy, Dam of Deputy Minister, Mother Siegel, dam of Minoru, Giantess, 2nd and 3rd dam of 7 classic winners, Blue Larkspur, Black Toney, etc. There are hundreds more, one of which is Urban Sea's dam Allegretta.

There is an important distiction that has to be made here. A very important one. When I speak of the male line being used to reinforce the female line.........I don't mean just the sire. It could be the sire, grandsire or great grandsire in the direct male line that is used to reinforce the female line.

With that in mind pull up the pedigree of Urban Sea's dam http://www.pedigreequery.com/Allegretta. You will see that her grandsire Agio traces to a mare called Aster while Allegretta also traces to Aster.

If you look at Agio's dam Aralia you will find the exact same pattern. Alchimist her sire traces to Alveole and so does Aralia.

I believe that Urban Sea's incredible breeding ability come from the fact that her dam is very reinforced when it comes to her tail female line. She is linebred to Aster and inbred to Alchimist and both these horses trace to the same mare. Check it out. Then you'll understand why I think Chauette, in the right hands could be an exceptional broodmare