PARISLONGCHAMP has a special resonance for the Tsui family, with Urban Sea and her son Sea The Stars providing them with remarkable memories.

It was good to see Christopher Tsui at the races to witness the latest Group 1 win for a son of the Gilltown Stud stallion, racing in the colours of the family’s Sunderland Holding. Sea La Rosa’s victory in the Group 1 Prix de Royallieu comes on top of her success at Deauville in the Group 2 Prix de Pomone, while in England she is Group 2, Group 3 and listed winner.

The four-year-old Sea La Rosa is trained by William Haggas, and it was apt that he saddled her to win as he came agonisingly close to winning another Arc for the Tsui family in 2018 with Sea Of Class, denied so narrowly by Enable. Sea Of Class, also a daughter of Sea The Stars, won the Group 1 Irish Oaks and Group 1 Yorkshire Oaks after she had been purchased as a yearling for 170,000gns.

Bought for €200,000 as a yearling at Arqana through Mandore International, Sea La Rosa has now earned more than three times her purchase price, and her value has grown exponentially. In addition to achieving all she has done, her year-younger full-brother Deauville Legend has won three times this year, latterly taking the Group 2 Great Voltigeur Stakes, and he holds an entry in the Group 1 Melbourne Cup.

The pair of current stars are out of Soho Rose (Hernando), and she gained her winning blacktype in a listed race at Dresden, and was stakes-placed in France. Responsible now for four winners, she is also dam of the Group 3-placed Dean Street Doll (Oasis Dream), and has a yearling filly by Golden Horn (Cape Cross) and a colt foal by Sea The Moon (Sea The Stars).

Fascinating

This is a fascinating female line, with two branches descending from Sea La Rosa’s unraced third dam Thornbeam (Beldale Flutter) excelling, but in different codes. Thornbeam’s Belgian stakes-winning daughter Cure The Blues (Phardante) bred a pair of French listed hurdle winners, and at least three of her daughters have produced blacktype National Hunt winners, including Cheltenham Grade 3 Coral Cup winner Diamond King (King’s Theatre) and Grade 2 hurdle and chase winner Stolen Silver (Lord Du Sud).

Three daughters of Thornbeam’s winning offspring Russian Rose (Soviet Lad) were stakes winners, including Sea La Rosa’s dam Soho Rose. The best of the trio was Soho Rose’s full-sister Hanami (Hernando), successful in the Group 2 (now Group 1) Pretty Polly Stakes at the Curragh. The third stakes winner from Russian Rose, Dubai Rose (Dubai Destination), bred the dual Group 2 Prix de Royallieu winner, and Group 1 Prix Vermeille third, The Juliet Rose (Monsun), as well as last weekend’s German listed winning three-year-old filly, Everest Rose (Dubawi).