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four-year-old season, with three additional Group victories- the Prix de Pépinvast, Prix de Maisons-Laffitte, and Prix Pierre de Lassus. Let’ s recall that Kingland had already made a sparkling debut by winning the coveted Prix Finot( Listed). As for current events, however, the horse is unfortunately sidelined due to a tendon injury. He is enjoying an extended 14-month rest period at his breeder’ s farm.“ The goal is to bring him back gently into training this winter, hoping to have him at his best by autumn 2026. It’ s a long process, but we are patient. His full brother by Cokoriko, born this year, has also been partially sold to the Maclennan family. Their dam, Annaland, a daughter of Saint des Saints, is, in a way, our heart mare, my wife’ s heart mare. She had already given us Figuero( editor’ s note: a dual Group 1 winner at Auteuil, including the Prix La Haye Jousselin).” The passing of Bernie Cyprès has left a great void.“ She was a devoted mother to our two sons. They’ ve lost so much. It will be hard to carry on, but I’ m lucky to have our children, Marius and Jules, by my side. Both are passionate about breeding. Jules has joined me and he’ s soon to become a father himself! And Marius is a veterinarian, settled just 500 meters from home.” For the past ten years, Thierry Cyprès has regularly ranked among the top three National Hunt breeders in France, and he even earned the Cheval d’ Or title in 2019. And who knows- perhaps a distant cousin of Kingland, a certain Lulamba, already a Group 1 winner at Punchestown this year, could bring him another top-level triumph in the Prix Renaud du
Vivier? The horse, trained by Nicky Henderson, is expected to run in that race on November 16 at Auteuil. To be continued...
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FABRE- GRAFFARD: THE HANDOVER
BY JOCELYN DE MOUBRAY
Sometimes, we have to set aside concerns about the future of racing and breeding and instead take the time to praise great deeds. Francios Graffard is France’ s new Champion trainer. He, and his team, didn’ t simply win the championship they dominated the season from February through to October, and no doubt beyond. At the time of writing Graffard’ s stable has won twelve Group 1 races in France, England and Germany and a total of 148 races, 48 Group and Listed races in France alone and more than 15 million euros in prizemoney.
Other French trainers have of course won more races in a calendar year, Jean Claude Rouget has won more than 200 races several times with his peak of 242 wins coming in 1994, however, only Andre Fabre has in the modern era, or what has been for racing in France the Fabre era, has won more than 40 Group or Listed races in one year. Since 1993, the first year for which the statistics are still on France Galop’ s website, Fabre has won more than 40 Group or Listed races six times with his best year being 1993 when the Fabre stable won 59 Group or Listed races in France alone. This was the year Fabre also won the 2,000 Guineas and Oaks in England with Zafonic and Intrepidity, the Irish Oaks with Weymss Bight and then the Breeders’ Cup Classic with Arcangues. In 1993 the Fabre stable had more or less the best horses owned by Sheikh Mohammed, Khaled Abdulla, Daniel Wildenstein, Paul de Moussac, Teruya Yoshida and others, and yet the Graffard stable of 2025 has come very close to matching its achievements. In 1993 Fabre won 148 races in France with 175 different runners, 25 % of his runners won, earning the equivalent of 10 million euros in 2025 terms. This year Graffard has run 179 different horses winning 146 races in France, 26 % of his runners won, and the stable’ s earnings in France are running at 12.7 million euros. In England Graffard won the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth and the Champion Stakes with Calandagan, while in Germany he won the Grosser Preis von Baden and the Europa Preis with Goliath and Sibayan. William Haggas, a perennial top ten trainer in Britain, caused some surprise when describing the experience of training to Nick Luck’ s podcast in October.‘ Every day’, Haggas assured his listeners, we get up saying what disaster is going to happen today. Training racehorses is mostly disasters, punctuated by the odd bit of good fortune.’ This year, at least, the disasters have been less frequent in the Graffard yard. He has won at least fourteen races, and several Group races every month from March to October. In percentage terms the best month was April when Graffard won with 36 % of his runners, 21 wins from only 58 runners, the worst May with
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