Kirsten Rausing on Alpinista: ‘There Were a Lot of Tears Shed’

On Sunday, Kirsten Rausing and Sir Mark Prescott achieved the impossible in uniting racing's participants in joy at the victory of Alpinista (GB) (Frankel {GB}) in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe.

For Prescott, Newmarket's longest-serving trainer now in his 53rd season with a licence, it was a moment that brought a tear to his eye as the witty one-liners for which he is famous gave way to pure emotion. For Rausing, too, who has painstakingly developed a broodmare band of significant international note over more than four decades at her Lanwades Stud, the five-year-old mare's resounding success at ParisLongchamp was a moment of extreme satisfaction. 

“It was a marvellous, marvellous day for all of us, and there is a big team that has achieved this, but it will still take some time to sink in,” said the owner-breeder on Monday morning as she continued to wade through messages of congratulation before turning her attention to the October Yearling Sale at Tattersalls. 

“Of course it was marvellous to see this crowning achievement of Sir Mark's fantastic career as well. We hardly needed a plane coming home,” she added of the man who has trained her homebreds for 35 years, including Alpinista's dam Alwilda (GB) (Hernando {Fr}) and grand-dam, the treble Group 1 winner Albanova (GB) (Alzao).

Until Sunday, it would likely have been Albanova's full-sister, the dual Champion S. winner Alborada (GB), who held the top spot in Rausing's affections but the fellow grey mare, also trained by Prescott, will now be vying for that honour with her relation Alpinista, whose Arc victory was her sixth consecutive Group 1 win and ensured that she has remained unbeaten for two years. 

It would be hard to find anyone in the breeding business who can speak with more authority and depth of pedigree knowledge than the Swedish-born Rausing. Her association with Alpinista's family started in 1985 when she purchased her fourth dam Alruccaba (Ire) Crystal Palace {Fr}) from the Aga Khan in partnership with her great friend Sonia Rogers of Airlie Stud, where Rausing spent some of her formative years working in the bloodstock business. Needless to say, it was no accident that Rausing ended up with a mare who would go on to have such a profound influence on her broodmare band and is also the ancestress of this season's St Leger winner Eldar Eldarov (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}).

“When I was a schoolgirl my grandfather taught me about pedigrees,” she recalled. “We started with dairy cattle and gun dogs and then we proceeded to thoroughbred horses, of which he knew nothing but he was very interested in their pedigrees and [books such as] Sir Charles Leicester's Breeding a Racehorse. The hero of anyone interested in breeding was the old Aga Khan–Lady Josephine (GB), Mumtaz Mahal (GB) and all that–and so it was through study of the old books and these wonderful fillies that I always thought that this family was, to my understanding, the very best in the studbook.”

Mumtaz Mahal, a daughter of The Tetrarch (Ire) who was purchased as a yearling by Aga Khan III and who became known as the 'Flying Filly' for her extraordinary success on the track, became an even bigger influence at stud for her owner. Fittingly, in the year in which the Aga Khan Studs celebrates its centenary, Mumtaz Mahal appears as the tenth dam of Alpinista.

Rausing continued, “So I was a great admirer of Mumtaz Mahal and those that came after her, and it also helped that when I was a child the Swedish National Stud had a horse called Darbhanga (GB) and he was by Dastur (GB) out of Mumtaz Begum (Fr), so he was a half-brother to Nasrullah (GB). He was a year or two older than Nasrullah and had been second in the Triple Crown in England but being by Dastur nobody wanted him. Nasrullah's greatness had yet to appear, so the Swedish government was able to buy this horse just after the war in 1945 and he came to Sweden and was a great success, probably the best there ever was. In fact, Bull Hancock sent an emissary to Sweden in the 1950s with a blank cheque to buy Nasrullah's brother but the Swedish government said, 'Whom do you take us for, we are a socialist government, not horse wranglers.' In a way that was a pity because if the horse had gone to Kentucky he would have had much more influence of course.”

The first Classic winner bred by Rausing's grandfather was a Danish 1,000 Guineas winner by Darbhanga out of a mare by Abernant (GB), and was thus inbred to Mumtaz Mahal. 

“So that really focused my absolute concentration on this family since I was a schoolgirl,” said Rausing, who bought Ayesha (GB) from Madame Couturié in 1967 from a different branch of the family and bred from her Ayah, who was the second-best two-year-old filly in Ireland in 1975.

“She had the SWE suffix so that was quite an achievement,” Rausing said. “But she died quite early so I was always scouring the catalogues for anything from that family. If anything ever cropped up they were always way too expensive for me. “When I saw Alruccaba in the book as a winning two-year-old in the December Sales of 1985 I was of course mad keen. I went to see her surreptitiously before the sales and, very luckily for me, she had a distinct tendon on her near-fore. She'd been trained by Michael Stoute and at the time his assistant was James Fanshawe who later told me that they'd never had anything slower in the yard, so they were  delighted that she managed to win a maiden at Brighton.”

With Sonia Rogers, a plan was hatched to secure Alruccaba. 

Rausing explained, “Sonia valued her much higher than I did so we had a complicated arrangement that I would bid for her and we would split her up to a certain value, and then if she made more I would keep bidding but she would be 100% Sonia's. Luckily she made a lot less than we thought she would. I bought her for one bid at 19,000gns, her reserve having been 18,000. So Sonia and I owned her together and she spent two years at Lanwades and two years at Airlie, backwards and forwards, throughout her career.”

Alruccaba's offspring include the Sun Chariot S. winner Last Second (Ire) and fellow black-type winners Alleluia (GB), Alouette (GB), and Arrikala (Ire). Another of her daughters, Jude (GB) (Darshaan {GB}), has established her own significant branch of the family which includes the Classic winner Yesterday (Ire) (Sadler's Wells).

“Alruccaba has founded quite a dynasty and it has been helped by the fact that there seems to have been more fillies than colts,” said Rausing. 

There was extra satisfaction for the breeder in the success of Alpinista as she is out of a mare by the former Lanwades resident Hernando (Fr), who also featured as broodmare sire of Saturday's G1 Prix de Royallieu winner Sea La Rosa (Ire) (Sea The Stars {Ire}), bred by Guy Heald.

She said, “With the few opportunities numerically that Hernando had, like Selkirk, he is a significant damsire.”

For Alpinista, the paddocks of Lanwades will call her home for next season after four honourable years in training, in which she has to date won ten of her 15 starts.

“She's done enough, more than enough, and I am eternally grateful to her,” Rausing said. “Whether she runs again is a matter for Sir Mark. She gave us such an incredible day on Sunday and there were a lot of tears shed, even perhaps a few by the great man himself.”

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Arc Showcases A Diamond Among Mares

Few people, anywhere in the world, will watch Europe's premier championship race on Sunday more avidly than Adam Bowden. His Diamond Creek Farm bred one of the leading fancies for the G1 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, Onesto (Ire) (Frankel {GB}), and Bowden hopes to seize the moment by cashing in the dam at Fasig-Tipton this November. It's just one remarkable vindication of the way Bowden has adapted an unusually precocious advent in the world of Standardbreds to a different environment; of a restless, questing mind that has matched calculation with adventure.

When he first went to a horse sale, in 2005, Bowden was 24 years old and he had a plan. “I went in there thinking I was going to buy five mares, and just do everything myself, and learn,” he recalls. “And I left that sale with 20 mares and five weanlings. And I was like, 'Oh shoot, now what?'”

Well, here's what. He stuck to the plan.

“So the whole first season, I did everything myself,” he continues, shrugging. “No employees. Bred all the mares, foaled out all the mares.”

Seriously? Twenty mares, single-handed?

“There was, like, quite a few 72 hours with no sleep, the first year,” he says wryly. “And then I thought, okay, maybe I need an employee. But from there, it was 20 mares and then 40 and then 60. And in a short period of time, we had 80 mares. And I was off and running.”

But if this startling vignette suggests that everything has been extemporized, that he has got here more or less by the seat of his pants, think again.

“Sure, at that age you absolutely think you can conquer the world,” he says. “And knowing what I know now, I mean, what an idiot. But probably being a little naïve was good, as well. And I had done my work ahead of time.”

To be clear, this was not a case of some excited kid jotting a few numbers on the back of an envelope.

“Before I started, for four years, I'd kept immaculate data,” he says. “Anything that I could compile into formulas. I come from a biology/chemistry background, so math was second nature for me. And I just took as much information as possible, plugged and chugged different formulas to try to figure out if I could find trends, either in the sales ring or on the racetrack.

“I came up with different ways to score pedigrees and, actually, I still use them today. That's just how I see the world: black and white, zeroes and ones, however you want to say it. And that's how I got started. I waited for an opportunity and it was, like, 'All right, this is a perfect time and place to do it.' I felt like I was ready, even though I wasn't. But I jumped in the deep end.”

For those of us unfamiliar with the Standardbred industry, the depth of the foundations laid then can today be measured not just by that broodmare cavalry but also by 11 stallions in three states, a 30-strong racetrack stable, a major sales consignment division; and now—despite having so far branched out only on a modest scale, with no more than 11 mares—elite Thoroughbred colts either side of the ocean. Besides Onesto, winner of the G1 Grand Prix de Paris, Diamond Creek also bred one of the most conspicuous juvenile talents of the American summer in Gulfport (Uncle Mo).

So something worked first time round, plainly, and now things also seem to be functioning pretty well in the venture that has now brought him to our attention. Okay, so Bowden had actually sold the dam of Gulfport, Fame And Fortune (Unbridled's Song), for $320,000 at the Keeneland January Sale. But he also banked $600,000 with the joint-top mare of the same session, Susie's Baby (Giant's Causeway), a half-sister to Caravaggio whose daughter Family Way (Uncle Mo) has been Grade I-placed a couple of times this summer. And the fact is that Fame And Fortune, in her four-year transit through Diamond Creek's evolving Thoroughbred division, contributed yearling sales of $500,000, $275,000 (for Gulfport himself) and $650,000.

Bowden doesn't deny that Gulfport's 12-length win in the Bashford Manor S.—sufficient to prompt Coolmore to buy a stake in the colt, who subsequently ran second in the GI Hopeful S.—made him reflect wistfully on the dam's sale.

“But that was all part of our process,” he explains. “We bought a mare that we thought had upside, we did well, we made money with her. And then we traded her back in, and bought [back] a daughter that we'd sold, who's a broodmare of ours right now. So it's not like we're totally out of the family. And that's how you make money, right?”

It was a similar story with Susie's Baby: Diamond Creek had retained her daughter by Tapit for the broodmare band. And now the time has come for a similar calculation regarding Onshore (GB) (Sea The Stars {Ire}), alertly picked up from Juddmonte for 320,000gns at the Tattersalls December Sale in 2016. She was unraced, but her dam was a sister to matriarch Hasili (Ire) (Kahyasi {Ire}). Her Frankel colt didn't meet his reserve in the same ring as a yearling, during the pandemic, but shipped to Ciaran Dunne of Wavertree before making $535,000 from Hubert Guy at OBS the following April. His deeds since for Fabrice Chappet—and a partnership headed up, aptly enough, by trotting champion Jean-Etienne Dubois—assisted a yearling half-sister by Gleneagles (Ire) to €460,000 at Arqana in August.

“The debate has been about trying to maximize capital,” Bowden explains of Onshore, who is still only nine. “That's always part of the process. We're blessed to have her. But they are worth what they are. And sometimes you have to take money off the table. At 41, I think I'm able to see that more than when I first started. Then I would have been, like, 'No way, I'm riding this thing out.' But potentially she allows us to go buy a handful more mares, and hopefully do it all over again. Because that's always your goal, to create something that the market wants. I mean, you test the market. If it's there, you take it. We're selling a sister to Family Way in October. If she doesn't bring enough, then we'll keep her—and I'm okay with that.”

Bowden has not arrived in the Thoroughbred game with any intention of reinventing the wheel. He's adamant about that. But he does, characteristically, want to figure things out for himself.

“If people say this is how you're supposed to do stuff, I will tend to do the opposite,” he admits. “So in the horse world in Kentucky it was like, 'You do it like this, because that's how we've done it for 50, 75 years.' And I just turned my back on that. I was like, 'I'm going to do it my way, whether it's good or bad.' And I've failed sometimes, been very successful other times. But don't tell me this is how I have to do something, because I've never been too good at hearing that. I mean, I was the one that was jumping out of the window in school, getting suspended and stuff, just because it was different. I have always been Mr. Risk Taker.”

As we've seen, however, it has always been a calculated risk. No less than when he went “all in” on those first Standardbreds, he did his due diligence on Thoroughbreds. He was first hooked, aptly enough given the emergence of Onesto, watching European grass racing in the farm office at dawn. Again he compiled the data, ran the software.

“We were looking for a niche where you feel like you know as much or more than everybody else that you're playing against,” he says. “And we identified an area of the sport I felt I could play in. I can't compete with people that own countries, people that have art collections and things like that. But we're very happy to stay in our lane.”

Fortunately that lane diverted through Coolmore, home to seven of the mares and source, too, of priceless counsel from Eddie Fitzpatrick. Bowden focused on mares of a specific type and price range, and then rolled the dice on elite stallion power.

“Like I said, don't reinvent the wheel,” he says. “It's more, figure out what works. In the Standardbred world, we do everything. But it's taken us 15, 16 years to get to that point. Here, we bought the horses and then partnered with people who know their stuff: Coolmore, and sales companies like Gainesway and Eaton. Just recently, we've been raising the yearlings after they get weaned. And the first group included Gulfport, so that's kind of fun.

“I mean a horse is a horse, right? Conformation flaws exist in both breeds. Athletes exist in both. Failures and successes. It's all the same. If you can withstand the harness world, you can withstand this world as well. As long as you stay in your lane, try not to do too much.”

One way or another, it has been quite a journey since the epiphany at a county fair in Windsor, Maine, when a bulb suddenly lit with a college kid. Bowden's grandfather had given him some exposure to cheap racehorses in his boyhood, cleaning stalls and grooming on Saturdays, and was seated next to him in the stands that day.

Bowden announced: “There isn't anything else I want to do.”

“Well,” his grandfather replied. “Then you better get a plan together.”

So he did internships on Standardbred farms in Pennsylvania during college, and then moved to Kentucky to learn the ropes in farriery and farm management. Bowden's father, a real estate entrepreneur, bought into the project with enthusiasm.

“I was the oldest of four kids and an athlete,” Bowden says. “So, my whole life, I'm a 'type A' personality: OCD, one-track mind. So for me to do this, it's just part of who I am. I am red-headed! I can be a fiery personality. But I think I know what I have. I know my knowledge base, and surround myself with good people. But it's always, like, what's next? We're always planning the next chapter.”

Which invites an obvious question.

“Well, we started with mares and foals in the Standardbred world, and then we added stallions, and then a race stable, and then a sales consignment business,” he says. “So who knows? The Thoroughbred stallion game, I don't know if I want to be in the business of standing them myself. But being involved in their ownership would be interesting. I'm always open-minded to anything where I feel like I have an edge. I like the 'boutiqueness' we have with Thoroughbreds: it allows the play at a level that we feel there's a niche for us. But if we talked in another five or 10 years, I suspect that this thing would look totally different than it does now. In a good way.”

So even if Onesto puts his dam right in the center of the shop window on Sunday, you feel that this is still only a beginning. On Thursday Bowden was flying back from Goffs where he had sold a Calyx (GB) filly for €145,000, the second highest price achieved by that young sire in the Orby Sale, preparing to tack back immediately to his consignment for a big Standardbred auction next week. Sometimes Lindsay, mother of their three children, will still venture the question: “When is enough enough?” By this stage, however, his wife knows the answer.

“Never!” Bowden says with a chuckle. “No, I don't know—but it's not now.”

This, after all, is a man who derives fulfilment from the ultimate in masochistic sport, the Iron Man marathon. Maybe that's what drew him to Thoroughbreds, a relish for adversity?

“Yeah, it's the punishment!” he jokes. “That's what gets me up, four o'clock every morning. We all go to Keeneland and sees horses bring a million. But you don't see the ones that don't get in foal, or X-ray bad right before the sale, or even that die during foaling. There's so many more of those downs than ups that you better enjoy it when it's good. But even in the darkest moments, it's always been like, 'There's better stuff coming. I just have to be patient.' I always felt like this was what I was supposed to be doing.

“People in the Thoroughbred world are no different from the way they are with Standardbreds. We're all crazy, right? Everybody knows that you're not going to make a ton of money. You might get lucky every once in a while, but at the end of the day, you do it because you love horses. That's why we're here.”

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Verry Elleegant Heads to the Arc

Verry Elleegant (NZ) (Zed {NZ}) has been confirmed to be on course for the G1 Qatar Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe and will be supplemented for France's most prestigious race, which this year takes place on Sunday, October 2.

The seven-year-old mare, whose 11 Group 1 wins include the Melbourne Cup and Caulfield Cup, has raced twice since leaving Chris Waller's Sydney stable and joining Francis Graffard in Chantilly, most recently finishing third in the G2 Prix Foy.

Announcing the news on Twitter, Verry Elleegant's connections said, “After a meeting with the ownership group and the trainer Francis-Henri Graffard, we are delighted to announce that we will be paying the late entry fee and giving our champion mare the chance to represent AUS/NZ in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe and take on the worlds best.”

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‘Nobody Knows Me But Everybody Knows Urban Sea’: Jean Lesbordes Recalls The Extraordinary Mare

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 of the pedigree of Hidden Dimples will come as no surprise to anyone who has followed the progress of that great mare. It is an understatement to say that Urban Sea's influence has been profound; she is arguably the most significant matriarch of the modern era. Without her there would be no Galileo (Ire), and therefore no Frankel (GB). No Sea The Stars (Ire), who would come to emulate his mother by winning the race for which she is best remembered of her seven stakes victories, the 1993 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe. 

It is at Epsom that Urban Sea's legacy runs the deepest, however. When Sea The Stars followed his half-brother Galileo by winning the Derby in 2009, the guest of honour that day was trainer/breeder Arthur Budgett, whose broodmare Windmill Girl (GB) had been the last mare before Urban Sea to produce two Derby winners, starting 40 years earlier with Blakeney (GB) and followed four years later by Morston (GB). 

It doesn't end there, of course. Galileo is now the sire of five Derby winners and grandsire of another two. One of those, Masar (Ire) (New Approach {Ire}), has Urban Sea on both sides of his pedigree as his third dam Melikah (Ire) (Lammtarra) is one of her four daughters, three of whom are now black-type producers themselves.

Sea The Stars, too, has sired the Derby winner Harzand (Ire) as well as Oaks winner Taghrooda (Ire), and he has the favourite for this year's Oaks in Emily Upjohn (GB). Nine of the top 10 in the betting for the Derby are all sons or grandsons of Galileo. Of the horses remaining in both Epsom Classics this weekend, 14 of the 18 potential Derby runners have Urban Sea in their pedigree, as do seven of 12 in the Oaks, not to mention 11 of 18 for Sunday's Prix du Jockey Club.

The Prix de la Seine of May 31, 1992 was really just the start for Urban Sea, certainly as far as the racing public was concerned. Though she had won an October maiden as a 2-year-old, this Listed contest was her first black-type victory, having finished third in the G2 German 1,000 Guineas on her previous start. For Lesbordes, however, it was really just the affirmation of a feeling he had had about Urban Sea ever since he first saw and fell in love with the chestnut daughter of Miswaki and Allegretta (GB) as a yearling at Marc de Chambure's Haras d'Etreham.

Everybody could ride her, even the girls who came to help at my stable on a Sunday. She was so straightforward. In our stable her name was 'La Mule'.

In partnership with Michel Henochsberg and Maurice Legasse, de Chambure bred Urban Sea at Denali Stud in Kentucky under their shared name of Marystead Farm. Her dam Allegretta, from a family with its roots deep in Germany's outstanding nursery Gestut Schlenderhan, was no one-horse wonder at stud. Her later foals included the 2,000 Guineas winner King's Best (Kingmambo) and G3 Prix de Flore winner Allez Les Trois (Riverman), who went on to produce the Prix du Jockey Club winner Anabaa Blue (GB) (Anabaa), but none would leave their imprint on the breed in the manner of Urban Sea. 

“In the beginning I chose her on pedigree because she was by Miswaki and I remember when I went to Keeneland I saw Mr Prospector and I loved him,” says Lesbordes, who bought the yearling filly for FF280,000 (circa €33,000).

“I saw her in the stud, a grand-daughter of Mr Prospector, and I just felt that everything was right. That was just before the August Sale. When I saw her, I don't know why, but something about her spoke to me. So when she came to Deauville I said, 'this one is for me'.”

That first important decision made, Urban Sea returned to the Chantilly stable of Lesbordes, whose passion for horses was sparked by attending the races with his father in Bordeaux, close to where he grew up. From stints on a stud farm while still studying, he worked for several trainers before eventually training in his own right in the south-west of France, including a successful period with jumpers in Pau.

“I had some results so I ended up moving to Chantilly,” he explains of his journey north in 1986. “My ambition was to win every type of Classic, and the horses who weren't good enough for Classics could go jumping. On the Flat I didn't want to run in handicaps.”

Bar one period when the number of horses in his stable rose to around 60, Lesbordes usually trained around 25 horses. Urban Sea was one of 20 horses purchased for a single owner.

“I bought Urban Sea for a Japanese owner with a big string in France,” he explains. “I bought her in August and then by February the Japanese owner had a financial crash.”

Faced with the prospect of losing the horses, Lesbordes was fortuitously introduced to Hong Kong businessman David Tsui through a mutual acquaintance, and Tsui, originally in partnership with a friend, ended up buying the entire group. 

“Our friendship has continued for more than 30 years,” says Lesbordes. He remains closely connected to the Tsui family and was present at Longchamp for the Arc victory of their homebred Sea The Stars, who raced in the colours of David and Ling Tsui's son Christopher. 

That year was a momentous one. Urban Sea died from complications after foaling her final son, Born To Sea (Ire), in March 2009. Come April, Sea the Stars started his extraordinary romp, month after month, through six Group 1 races: the 2,000 Guineas, Derby, Eclipse, Juddmonte International, Irish Champion Stakes, and finally the Arc itself. 

It is easy to see how Lesbordes is so strongly attached to his clear favourite of Urban Sea's offspring. It was not, however, instantly obvious to the trainer that he had a future champion on his hands when Sea The Stars's mother first entered training. In fact,  Urban Sea was given a nickname that is certainly not befitting of her now-legendary status. 

“In the stable at the beginning she was the easiest to ride,” he recalls. “Everybody could ride her as a yearling, even the girls who came to help at my stable on a Sunday. She was so straightforward. In our stable her name was 'La Mule'.

“My son Clement started to ride her and when she started to work she was fantastic. As a 2-year-old she had a little issue  with her fetlock so we had to stop. But it was no problem and then she ran later at two and won the second time she ran at Maisons-Laffitte. She was very easy to train. She was asleep most of the time, but every time we showed her something she picked it up no problem.”

In my life as a trainer only three times I said 'I will win'. Three times. And the Arc was one of them.

It is this equable temperament that Lesbordes says he believes has been key to the success not just of Urban Sea but of her offspring. Of her 11 foals, nine raced, eight of which were black-type winners, four of those at the highest level. Certainly in assessing the phenomenal success Ballydoyle has had with Galileo, Aidan O'Brien refers regularly to the strength of his temperament and to that of his offspring. 

Sea The Stars had the same character,” says Lesbordes, who ceased training a handful of years after Urban Sea retired from racing as a 5-year-old. He later spent eight years working for the Paris-Turf.

“He started in training when I was working as a journalist so I had more opportunity to follow him. I saw Sea The Stars for the first time at Epsom for the Derby and when he came into the parade ring he was so quiet, almost asleep, just the same. Urban Sea gave him this disposition.

“It's incredible because all of her produce were fantastic. When you have a horse like Galileo you think that is pretty special, but then after that you have Sea The Stars. Incredible. Then there were the good fillies, and now they are all good producers, too.”

For Lesbordes, though the memories of Urban Sea are are still fresh decades later, they come with a bittersweet edge. His son Clement, her daily exercise rider who was 20 at the time of the mare's Arc victory, was killed in a cycling accident four years later. He had accompanied Urban Sea on her many trips abroad, to Japan, Hong Kong, England, Germany, Canada and America, with that road once travelled so happily together coming to the most tragically abrupt ending.

“I remember everything about Urban Sea,” says Lesbordes, now 76 and still resident in Chantilly. 

He adds wistfully, “Nobody knows me but everybody knows Urban Sea. When I am finished Urban Sea will always be remembered. For me, it is extra special as my son took Urban Sea everywhere. It was magic.”

Of the most magical of all those days, he says, “I felt sure she would win the Arc. I was sure. I don't know why. In my life as a trainer only three times I said 'I will win'. Three times. And the Arc was one of them. 

“On the day of the Arc I was quite nervous and I saw one of the breeders of Urban Sea, Michel Henochsberg. The race just before the Arc, Verveine (Lear Fan) won the Prix de l'Opera and Urban Sea had beaten her in Deauville in August. In the stables, Michel Henochsberg said to me 'C'est dommage'.

“I remember at the time it felt like a knife in the heart. But after the Arc it was not a shame at all!”

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