Sea-Bird started slowly, as he had done in his two wins, but made up a great deal of ground in the straight to finish second, two lengths behind Grey Dawn.

At the end of the season, Sea-Bird was rated three pounds inferior to Grey Dawn by the official French handicapper.

There was an incident the night before the race in which police and security staff repelled a gang which had attempted to enter the stable of the 2000 Guineas winner Niksar.

He raced on the outside behind the leaders until the turn into the straight and then moved up to take the lead on the bridle with Glennon sitting "still as a statue".

In July, Sea-Bird ran in the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud, which he won, easing down, by two and a half lengths from Couroucou.

Starting at odds of 6/5, Sea Bird won easily despite veering across the track, with jockey Pat Glennon patting him down the neck in the final 100 yards, by six lengths (though photographs of the finish show it to have been closer to four and a half lengths) from Reliance.

[5] This remained the highest until Frankel's performance in the 2012 Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot was rated 147.

[6] A summary of Sea-Bird's racing career is listed below: Prior to the running of his final race, the American breeder John W. Galbreath paid owner Jean Ternynck a reported $1,350,000 to lease Sea-Bird for five years' stud duty at his Darby Dan Farm in Kentucky.

[18] Among Sea-Bird's progeny were the dual French classic and 1974 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe-winning mare Allez France (who had a Timeform rating of 136, making her still, according to that publication, the highest ever rated middle distance racemare); the 1974 Preakness and Belmont Stakes winner Little Current; the Champion Hurdle winner Sea Pigeon; and Gyr, second in the 1970 Epsom Derby behind the English Triple Crown winner Nijinsky II.