Between them, Galileo and Sea The Stars were responsible for four group race winners at last week’s Glorious Goodwood festival, with Stradivarius (Gr1 Qatar Goodwood Cup), Endless Time (Gr3 Lillie Langtry Stakes) and Crystal Ocean (Gr3 Gordon Stakes) providing Sea The Stars with a group race treble, and Galileo’s outstanding daughter, Winter, landing her fourth consecutive Gr1 victory when successful in the Qatar Nassau Stakes.
The season’s other star 3yo filly in Britain this year, Enable, is by Galileo’s son, Nathaniel.
Galileo
Galileo’s sons, New Approach and Soldier Of Fortune, also enjoyed Goodwood success, with Londinium and Soldier In Action, scoring on Wednesday and Saturday, respectively.
Galileo daughters have now won the Nassau Stakes for the last two years running and it would be a brave punter who bets against the sire enjoying a hat trick in 2018.
Winter
When Winter landed the Nassau Stakes on Thursday, she provided her sire with an astonishing 12th Gr1 success of the year, and with still plenty of Gr1 action yet to come in 2017, one can but wonder how many more Gr1 victories the progeny of Galileo may yet enjoy this year. Winter is bred on a very similar cross to Minding, with the latter being out of a mare by Danehill Dancer, whose star sprinting son, Choisir, is broodmare sire of Winter. The Galileo/Danehill cross has enjoyed huge success with that pattern producing such Gr1 winners/champions as Frankel, Highland Reel, Roderic O’Connor, Golden Lilac and Teofilo. Sea The Stars is yet to enjoy such success when mated to Danehill mares, although the cross has produced group winners, My Titania and Stellar Mass.
Sea The Stars – champion
Sea The Stars, has, however, enjoyed plenty of success when mated to mares from the Sadler’s Wells male line, with this cross producing his classic winning daughter, Taghrooda, and Gr2 winner, Storm The Stars. Sadler’s Wells is also found in the pedigrees of the champion’s Gr1 winners, Sea The Moon, Zelzal, and Stradivarius.
Gold Standard
Galileo’s unbeaten son, Teofilo, also got in the act at Goodwood last week, as the sire of promising stallion, Havana Gold. The latter, winner of the Gr1 Prix Jean Prat back in 2013, has made a flying start with his first two-year-olds in 2017, and is responsible not only for last week’s Gr3 Bombay Sapphire Molecomb Stakes winner, Havana Grey, but also Gr2 Coventry Stakes runner up, Headway.
Havana Gold is Britain’s leading first crop sire and he looks another potential flag bearer for the increasingly successful Galileo male line. With Galileo sons, Frankel and Nathaniel, making such blistering starts to their stud careers, and with the likes of Gleneagles and Australia yet to be represented on the track, Galileo (whose daughter, To Eternity, became his 250th stakes winner when landing the Listed Chalice Stakes on Saturday) and his male line heirs look headed for the stratosphere!
Final
His half-brother, Sea The Stars, already responsible for English classic winners, Harzand and Taghrooda, looks now to have two potential contenders for the final British classic of the season, the Gr1 William Hill St Leger, with both Stradivarius and Crystal Ocean potential contenders. Not surprisingly, betting for the St Leger sees Urban Sea’s two sons dominate proceedings, with Galileo or his sons responsible for three of the top five in the betting and Sea The Stars’ recent Goodwood group winners making up the final two. Another son of Sea The Stars, Raheen House, is also a potentially strong contender for the Leger. Galileo has already sired the 1-2-3 finishers in a St Leger, and it is certainly not inconceivable that the Urban Sea star sons once again dominate Britain’s longest classic.
Blond Me (Tamayuz), who was runner up to Winter in the Nassau Stakes, came close to providing the Allegretta (dam of Urban Sea) family with more glory as her sire, Tamayuz, – sire of this year’s French 1000 Guineas winner, Precieuse- is out of a granddaughter of Allegretta. Blond Me is from the immediate family of Irish 2000 Guineas winner and KZN based sire, Spectrum. Inbreeding to Allegretta is also an increasing factor in international breeding, with Gr3 Prix de Cabourg winner, Tantheem, bred on such a pattern.
Global View – exciting prospect
With Sea The Stars (Quasillo) and Galileo (Kingsbarns, Global View, The United States, The Assayer) represented in South Africa, it surely won’t be long before the influence of Urban Sea spreads further in this country as well.
