Taghrooda is an important horse for out continuing inquiry into how to concentrate classic speed in the racehorse for a number of reasons. The first is the fact that she is the first classic winner from the first crop of Sea the Stars the multiple classic winning half brother to the world’s leading sire Galileo. It’s beginning to look like Sea the Stars is about to follow in his brothers footprints as an important source of classic speed. It is my contention that these two stallions owe their extraordinary breeding ability to the fact that their dam Urban Sea and their Granddam, Allegretta are Cluster Mares. At this point Sea the Stars has only one classic winner but he has two more contenders waiting in the wings, one in France and the other in Germany.
The second point of interest is that Taghrooda has a 3rd dam which has just achieved Cluster Mare status. The mare’s name is Ezana by Ela-Mana-Mou. Not only does she have Taghrooda tracing to her in tail female, but she has Queen Elizabeth II classic winning mare Estimate tracing to her as well. Estimate is two generations from Ezana while Taghrooda has her in the 3rd generation. Estimate’s dam not only produced her, but two other classic winning progeny in Ebadiyla (Irish Oaks, Prix Royal Oak), and Enzeli (Ascot Gold Cup). Ezana’s descendants have won 5 classic races within the required six generations giving her Cluster Mare status. Most likely more Cluster mares will appear in this female family in the next few generations. One can make this evaluation because Estimate’s dam alone has 10 well bred daughters in the hands of prominent breeders insuring they will receive the greatest of opportunity. Here are a couple of pedigrees to look at;
Ezima is the dam of Taghrooda while Ebaziya is a half-sister to Estimate. Both mares are by Sadler’s Wells out of daughters of Darshaan and the daughters of Darshaan are full sisters.
A summary of this family is that it originated the Marcel Boussac’s breeding program in 1919 with the addition of Banshee to the broodmare band. Inbreeding to Banshee produced Tourzima a foal of 1939. Since then a procession of classic winners have appeared including the following
| Classic Winner | Year Foaled | Races Won |
| Corejada | 1947 | French 1G, Irish Oaks |
| Macip | 1952 | Fr SL, Ascot Gold Cup |
| Appollonia | 1953 | French 1G, Oaks |
| Acamas | 1975 | French Derby |
| Akiyda | 1979 | Arc de Triomphe |
| Darshaan | 1981 | French Derby |
| Ebadiyla | 1994 | French SL, Irish Oaks |
| Enzeli | 1995 | Ascot Gold Cup |
| Sinndar | 1997 | Derby, Irish Derby, AGC |
| Taghrooda | 2011 | Oaks |
Tourzima quickly achieved Cluster Mare status doing so within two generations. Corejada, Macip, and Appollonia are within two generations of Tourzima and between them won six classic races when only five are required within six generations. To date Tourzima has 10 runners of 16 classic races tracing to her within six generations. More importantly for the future is the fact that the family has produced two more Cluster mares since Tourzima. They are Albanilla and Ezana. As previously mentioned a few more cluster mares are likely to emerge from this family in the next 10 years.
Tourizma
It’s important to know about cluster mares (the building blocks of the breed) and even more important to recognize those mares likely to earn cluster mare status in the future while they are still living. For more information refer back to the essay on Marcel Boussac and Estimate.
