ENGLISH TEXTS
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TRAINER
A GENERATION SETS SAIL
By Emmanuel Roussel
Four leading trainers will not be renewing their licenses for 2025 . The succession is assured , but this long passing of the baton from a departing generation leaves behind a void that , decidedly , wouldn ’ t vanish .
The year 2024 draws to a close with the end of the careers of great trainers , without whom the racing news of the last thirty years would not have had the same flavour . The announcements of Carlos Laffon-Parias , Pascal Bary and then David Smaga in France were followed by that of Sir Michael Stoute across the Channel . Four radically different personalities , but all equally remarkable in their own way , are thus gently leaving the stage .
Autumn : the season of assessments
Each autumn is an opportunity for ageing handlers to take stock and consider their future , if not for the immediate future , then at least for the months to come . For the retirement of a racehorse trainer is no trivial matter . Beyond the emotion it generates around and within the person who is leaving , the financial and legal constraints , in France , are considerable , especially if this withdrawal has not been prepared for a long time . For those who have their heart in the right place , the future of the staff is also very important . Good riders find a place quickly , but not everyone has that sort of talent . After Criquette Head ,
Alain de Royer-Dupré and Freddy Head , who had the delicacy not to take the same boat , three other great names in French racing are disappearing from the columns of our racecards with a single stroke . Across the Channel , pushed by a slightly less imperious devil than the one that cruelly dispatched his great rival , " Sir Michael " leaves the stage a few years after " Sir Henry ". Little by little , time does its work and reminds us of our own age , we who have followed , season after season , the joys and sorrows of these men and women , their evolution , shared their victories and defeats , encouraged their horses , learned and discussed by conversing with them , tried to climb into the carriage , manoeuvred to gather what we took to be the essence of their thoughts and , sometimes , managed to share it . By dint of serving as our subject , they have become , in a way , our role models .
Characters over records
Aged 60 to 79 , these new retirees will therefore take another path , and we are condemned to watch them helplessly as they go . There ’ s nothing to be said . We could remember their best horses , their greatest victories , but in the end , the characters are stronger than their text : exit a falsely fatalistic Smaga , a Laffon-Parias constantly in the arena , a neo-classical Bary , and a Stoute sometimes hilarious , sometimes terrifying . Of course , the closure of a large stable is a practically inexorable process , and therefore predictable . " A career , like a life , follows a curve ," summarises Pascal Bary . Something immaterial , intangible happens that makes one morning , the way you look at a name is no longer the same . Except for life ' s accidents , a trainer ' s career does not end abruptly . It ' s a patina that we once found precious and that suddenly is just wear and tear . A loved one that we still love , but " differently ".
Even before the number of champions produced by a stable decrease , the quantity of potential champions coming in dwindles . Pedigrees are missing , owners , themselves grappling with the meaning of their own lives , change hobbies rather than change wives , or pass away without an inheritance . And there is the fashion , of course . Ascent is followed by descent . Victories become rarer . Then runners , and soon , you wonder what happened . To perpetuate their stable and facilitate their departure , some trainers try to pass on the torch by partnering with a successor , sometimes a family member , like the Heads , Cunningtons , Adèles , Pelats dynasties before them , and I ' m sure I ' m forgetting many others .
However , capricious cradles do not always produce heirs , and you have to resign yourself to finding the right partner , the pearl , and train him or her . Not to go live their own life elsewhere , but to take your own place . The patrons , moreover , do not have to stay in that boat . The relationship between a trainer and an owner borders on friendship , even alchemy when the will of one supports the ambition of the other . The recipe is not easy , the soufflé always miraculous !
Thus , when trainers of the calibre of those who are leaving us this year depart , even if they deny it , even if they try not to make too much noise , they leave behind much more than empty boxes . A whole culture dies when they take their leave ; the one in which we were born to racing . And when , in our turn , all of us who were there to bathe in it will be gone , who , will still look for " their dust , and the trace of their virtues ", as the song says ? The words will desperately
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