Urban Icon, the high-class son of Cityscape, returned to the racecourse for the first time since June 2019 to win the Listed Lady Wulfruna Stakes at Wolverhampton on 7 March. Officially rated 108 going into the event ~ coincidentally, the same mark as his sire on his four-year-old debut ~ he becomes Cityscape’s seventh Stakes winner to date (an eighth is Urban Artist who won a Listed bumper at Cheltenham).
Bred by Minster Stud ~ the Carsons have been tremendous supporters of Cityscape ~Urban Icon won both his starts at two, when he was Timeform’s highest-rated cap P juvenile at the end of the season. Talked of as the best three-year-old in the Richard Hannon stable, he was given a Guineas preparation, running third in the G3 Greenham after a long lay-off (Cityscape had been placed in the same race first time out at three). A fine effort in the Classic ~ just behind the placed horses on the wrong side of the track ~ was his only off-the-board run last year, when he ran with distinction in Listed and Group races at Epsom, Royal Ascot and Newmarket. His early season target for 2020 is likely to be the valuable mile race at the All-Weather Championships meeting on Good Friday or the G2 Sandown Mile the following week.
Urban Icon is out of the mare Fouran, and its a cross which may well be worth emulating: Cityscape has sired three talented horses out of mares from the same Storm Cat sire line in South America, including the G2 performer Top Scape, out of a Giant’s Causeway mare, and the G1 horse Lauda Air.
