Urban Sea

Observations on the European Racing Scene turns the spotlight on the best European races of the day, highlighting well-pedigreed horses early in their careers, horses of note returning to action and young runners that achieved notable results in the sales ring. Tuesday's Observations features the daughter of an Oaks runner-up, and who is also a half-sister to Group-winner Lily Pond (Ire). 18.45 Tipperary, Mdn, €12,000, 2yo, f, 5fT TRULY ENCHANTING (IRE) (No Nay Never) is one of two rides for Ryan Moore on the evening card and an intriguing Ballydoyle...

Sponsored by Alex Nichols Agency 5th-GP, $50,000, Msw, 3yo/up, 1mT, post time: 3:13 p.m. ET A day after her half-brothers Galileo (Ire) and Sea The Stars (Ire) accounted for the two Group 1 winners on Cazoo Oaks day at Epsom, Live Oak's Grade I winner My Typhoon (Ire) (Giant's Causeway) is represented by the debuting TYPHOON'S LEGACY (Kitten's Joy). Charlotte Weber's operation paid a sales-topping (more than three times the price of the next most expensive offering) 1.8 million gns ($2,942,730) for My Typhoon when offered by the Irish National...

Kick-starting a new weekly Q&A series in TDN Europe, former champion trainer John Oxx, whose spellbinding career will forever be remembered through his masterful handling of Sea The Stars (Ire) (Cape Cross {Ire}), Sinndar (Ire) (Grand Lodge) and Ridgewood Pearl (GB) (Indian Ridge {Ire}), sat down with Brian Sheerin to talk all things racing and breeding. The dual Derby-winning trainer speaks about Epsom, how delighted he is that Sea The Stars has a top-notch miler in Baaeed and his life in retirement.   Brian Sheerin: There are few weeks in...

On the day of this year's French Guineas, Jean Lesbordes perused the runners in the paddock for the Prix de la Seine, made his way to the stands to watch the race, and then back to the winner's enclosure for another look at the victrix Hidden Dimples (Ire), a daughter of Frankel (GB). Thirty years earlier, Lesbordes had a much stronger connection to the winner of the same race. He was her trainer and the filly's name was Urban Sea. The fact that her name appears in the third generation...

This time twenty years ago, Galileo (Ire) was a once-raced winning maiden gradually being honed to full fitness on the Ballydoyle gallops ahead of his Classic season. That debut outing at Leopardstown on Oct. 28, 2000, had started with the young son of Sadler's Wells and the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe heroine Urban Sea as evens favourite and ended, after a mile on heavy ground, with him 14 lengths clear of the Aga Khan's Taraza (Ire).  We've all seen 2-year-olds burn brightly in their maidens only to fizzle out...

LEXINGTON, KY--John G. Sikura is not afraid to think outside the box when it comes to his stallion roster at Hill 'n' Dale Farm in Kentucky, and indeed he is not prone to allowing such fickle factors as marketplace fashion to sway his belief in the long-term potential of an animal. These traits are apparent in his own pedigree-his father, the late great Canadian breeder and stallion master John Sikura Jr., had a tendency of shaking up the status quo during the Windfields Farm reign of the 1960s and 70s...