They are breeders, owners, trainers, jockeys, or thoroughbred horses, and they have made the news this season. We will therefore give a voice to each of them. Every month in our upcoming editions, we will introduce you to our lucky winners.
OWNER
WERTHEIMER & FRÈRE : A TIMELESS CLASSIC
The blue and white silks of the Wertheimer stable, taken over since 1996 by the two brothers Alain and Gérard, are among the oldest and most famous in France. From its thunderous beginnings just before World War I to the present day, it has absorbed all the lessons and applied their teachings in organizing an armada that, year after year, manages to maintain its standing in the highly unpredictable business of Thoroughbred selection.
A NEW SEASON FOR THE TEAM’S CHAMPIONS
“Sosie and Aventure spent their holidays at Saint-Léonard, where we have a dedicated facility,“ explains Pierre-Yves Bureau. “They had a real break . We are very impatient to see them again. Sosie is going to get stronger, but he still seems to be ground dependent. We hope that he will confirm his performances over 2,400 metres, and I would be curious to see him race over 2,000 metres. That would be interesting. The objective is to get these horses to the end of the year, for races like the Arc , but that’s a long way off...“
VIDÉO Clélia Moncorgé went to meet Aventure upon her return from vacation, as well as her trainer, Christophe Ferland, who was delighted to have the 2024 Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe runnerup back in his stables. © Karisma Consulting
A REAL ATTACHMENT TO FRANCE
“What characterises the Wertheimer & Frère,“ notes Pierre-Yves Bureau, “ is a real attachment to France. All the horses are based here, everything is here. All the horses are trained in France, broken in in France. And I think we have a great racing system. So there are constraints, which are becoming pressing , in terms of prize money and the public, which we have to face. But I don’t think we should try to change or destroy one of the best systems in the world too much either. I remain convinced that if Wertheimer & Frère is in France today and everything is going well, it’s because we have this system. And if there are other large stables that are based or developing here, it’s also thanks to this system.“
HORSE
COKORIKO , THE PRIDE OF JEAN-PAUL GALLORINI
Leading jumps sire in France in 2024 for the second year running, Cokoriko is a testament to Jean-Paul Gallorini’s expertise : he bred the stallion and trained both his sire and dam, having purchased the latter at the sales when she was 3.
His first foals are 8 years old and he has been crowned leading jumps sire for the second year running in 2024. Born in May 2009 in Saône-et-Loire, at the home of trainer Jean-Paul Gallorini and his partner Alexandrine Berger , the son of Robin des Champs had run only four times and, while he had won twice, the best of those victories was simply a Listed race. However, on that occasion, and in the colours of Alexandrine, he had beaten two 4-year-olds who would go on to make a name for themselves: Milord Thomas and Un Temps pour Tout. The former went on to win five Group 1 races, including three Prix La Haye Jousselin Chases (Gr.1) and a Grand Steeple-Chase de Paris (Gr.1). The latter won a Grande Course de Haies d ’ Auteuil (Gr.1) and several Group races across the Channel... This promising victory was to be Cokoriko’s last, however: “He was a talented colt, powerful and no nonsense type of colt,“recalls his breeder-trainer. “He started by winning on his debut at Auteuil, in April of his 4-year-old season. I had left him entire because I had regretted gelding his two-year-older brother, Caesar’s Palace, the first foal out of his dam Cardounika. He was a superb individual and very quickly became a champion. Then Cokoriko finished 5th and , as his first jockey had gone off to live his life, I had to find another one for his third start. I did but he didn’t come around the colt. Then, before running his last race, he injured himself because of the stones that have always infected the Maisons-Laffitte tracks. He wasn’t 100% on the day of the race, but he had got used to his problem. I never injected my horses for the races. After this great victory, however, I had to face the facts: his career was over...“ As Jean-Paul Gallorini recalls, Cokoriko’s dam, Cardounika (Nikos), had already produced a very talented colt, Caesar’s Palace, winner of three Gr.3s at Auteuil at 4, but who fell in the Grand Prix d’Automne in his second season after a two-year break. After Cokoriko, she also produced Chanducoq (Voix du Nord), a full brother to Cokoriko, and also a stallion. “Cokoriko and Chanducoq are called that because when I passed Yannick Fouin’s house in the morning on my way to the Rond Adam in Maisons-Laffitte, I was hearing his cockerel crowing, and it reminded me of my youth in Marseilles, where we also heard it,“explains the most Mediterranean of all Maisons-Laffitte residents. Jean-Paul Gallorini bought Cardounika at 3 years old for €16,000 at the July sales, which were then held at Saint-Cloud. “I love all the progeny of Nikos,“he explains, “and with Cadoudal on the dam’s side, it was even better. What beautiful French bloodlines! And then, I liked her. I outbid Robert Collet, who wanted her for the same reasons as me. We brought her home and when he saw her, my head lad, Rémi Passelande, told me he knew her from having broken her in and that she was impossible to ride! Never mind... We started her on the Flat at Evreux because we had worked her on speed and on that track, if you get away well at the start, you can make the difference. She finished 4th, good: I entered her in the Prix Finot at Auteuil over hurdles (a very popular race for novice hurdlers, editor’s note). Who was she battling with on the final bend? Maia Eria! The future champion! Except that she slipped and almost fell: she finished 6th. She was a difficult mare, but she had quality.“Cardounika ran 20 times, won only one race but earned over €77,000 before retiring to stud. The story doesn’t end there. Indeed, Jean-Paul Gallorini also trained the dam of Robin des Champs, Cokoriko’s sire. This mare, Relayeuse (Iron Duke), won seven races from 26 starts... “The fact is that after his short racing career, no one was very interested in Cokoriko,“ recalls Jean-Paul Gallorini. “Jean-Louis Berger, Alexandrine’s father, a great breeder from Saône et-Loire, then reminded me that the Haras de Cercy was looking for stallions. I got in touch with Jacky Cyprès, who was in charge of the stud farm acquisitions, and that was that. I must say they have done an exceptional job with him. His stud career is very well managed by all the staff and I am very happy about that. It ’ s a real pleasure to see him there. On the other hand, I wasn’t very happy with Cardounika’s daughters at stud, who were unlucky. But one of them, Cesarine Palace, still gave me the very good Chichi de la Vega, who earned nearly €300,000 for Robert Collet, who ended up finding Cardounika’s line, after all!“
“COKORIKO AND CHANDUCOQ ARE NAMED LIKE THAT BECAUSE, IN THE MORNINGS, WHEN PASSING BY YANNICK FOUIN’S PLACE ON THE WAY TO THE ROND ADAM AT MAISONS-LAFFITTE, I WOULD HEAR THE SOUND OF HIS ROOSTER, AND IT REMINDED ME OF MY CHILDHOOD IN MARSEILLE, WHERE WE WOULD HEAR IT TOO.” – Jean-Paul Gallorini
PAGE 16 Jean-Paul Gallorini (holding the trophy) poses for a photo alongside Cokoriko after his victory in the Prix Claude Cohen at Auteuil. © APRH
“RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PANORAMIC RESTAURANT AT AUTEUIL, SHE SCREAMED AT HER HUSBAND THAT IF HE DIDN’T DO EVERYTHING TO SAVE THE MARE, SHE WOULD DIVORCE HIM.” – Jean-Paul Gallorini
NÉOMÉNIE, A SPECIAL MARE
Among the great mares trained by Jean-Paul Gallorini, there is one that seems to hold a special place in his heart, and that is Néoménie. She was born in Ireland in 1978 and bred by the Wildensteins. According to Jean-Paul Gallorini, her first trainer initially decided to discard her from his string. Her fate was hanging by a thread when Jean-Paul Gallorini, who was then training the Wildensteins’ jumpers, took her over. She was very ugly,“he sums up.“ A draft horse’s head, huge ears, a big belly, hooves that made the ground shake... But she had heart. I warned Mr Wildenstein, who had preferred to give her to his wife Sylvia, that she was going to make her debut, but as I didn’t want to risk embarrassing him, we went to Dieppe for a hurdle race, and she finished 9th. But very well. I ran her at Enghien and she finished 2nd, then at Auteuil, she won by six lengths! Two weeks later, she did it again. My eminent colleagues were shouting scandal, shouting doper, she was so ugly. Two weeks later, I was told that I had seven horses that had tested positive, that they were being disqualified, including Néoménie, and that my licence was being withdrawn for life... I lived for many years as an outcast before getting my licence back, but Néoménie won three more times the following season (trained by Patrick Rago, editor’s note).“
Injured in her tendons in the summer of 1982 at Auteuil, Néoménie seemed doomed, but Sylvia Wildenstein wanted to save “her“ mare at all costs. “In the middle of the panoramic restaurant at Auteuil, she had shouted at her husband that if he didn’t do everything to save her, she would divorce him,“recounts Jean-Paul Gallorini. The surgery was a success, and the mare retired to stud. “For her second year at stud, I insisted that she should go to Crystal Palace. He too had been saved from the worst by François Mathet, when he had recovered horses from Guy de Rothschild, including this future Prix du Jockey Club winner who had already been written off! It’s written in black and white in the book dedicated to him, La Course Parfaite.“ From this union came Nile Palace, the second dam of the champion chaser Docteur de Ballon, and Scarlet Row, who produced Politologue and Starlet du Mesnil... All five of Néoménie’s foals won, with Nil Bleu winning the Prix de Pépinvast 4yo Hurdle (Gr.3). After Nile Palace, she produced an even more prolific dam, Newness. She is responsible for N’Avoue Jamais (1st in the Prix Alain du Breil 4yo Hurdle-Gr.1, dam of Nickelle), Nom d’Une Pipe, Nickname (sire, a Gr.1 winner in Ireland), New Saga, all of whom were Group class, but also one of the best French jumps sires, No Risk At All, also trained by Jean-Paul Gallorini and a dual Group 3 winner on the Flat. Néoménie, in addition to that hidden beauty of ugly things that Serge Gainsbourg sang about, also had heart, because she healed the heart of her banished trainer: “For someone who was supposed to be doping his horses, I still produced quite a few extraordinary broodmares and stallions...“
PAGE 19 Cokoriko with Sarah . © Zuzanna Lupa for Haras de Cercy
BREEDING
AT HARAS DE CERCY , STRENGTH IN UNITY !
Created in 2012 to compensate for the withdrawal of the National Studs, the cooperative of Cercy-la- Tour, in the Nièvre Département, is the French heavyweight of jumps stallion provision. Nearly a thousand mares were covered there in 2024, with profits approaching €1,300,000. Major expansion projects are underway…
Tradition is well established: every first Saturday in January, the stallions of Cercy-la-Tour are on show. The public, made up of hundreds of breeders from the Centre region and beyond, is more demanding in this cradle of the AQPS than fashion critics at a Chanel show! In front of the expert crowd, Prince Gibraltar struts his stuff, Karaktar shows off his stance, and Cokoriko closes the show with panache as the leading French jumps sire. Everyone then gathers for a gargantuan aperitif followed by a lively lunch. This unmissable event is the legacy of the stallion parades that took place in Cluny and other Stud farms in the days of the National Studs, then presented by the National Stud Manager, a civil servant, in full uniform.
First Try, A Masterstroke The Coopérative Agricole des Éleveurs de Chevaux de Course (SCAECC) of Cercy was created in February 2012 to provide a solution to the end of public stallion provision. “Apart from the National Studs, there was nothing in the area except the Haras de Saint Voir, which is more than eighty kilometres away,“ explains Jacques Cyprès, the cooperative’s long-standing president. “If we hadn’t reacted, we would have lost a huge number of mares. “Seventy-six breeders therefore became founding members, investing a thousand euros each to take their destiny into their own hands. The cooperative began by leasing the National Stud stallions from the Cluny district, including Network, before investing in new breeding stock. Its first purchase was Cokoriko (2009, Robin des Champs ): a resounding success! It must be said that any stallion starting his career at Cercy is guaranteed a hefty support. “When we have the chance to launch a horse, we syndicate him in part, which guarantees him a base of about fifty mares, “says Jacques Cyprès. The cooperative retains a majority share in any stallion it acquires, to secure him. Thus, Cokoriko and Karaktar have remained at home despite stratospheric purchase offers... Jeu Saint Eloi was exported, but the cooperative only owned 30% of him. This exceptional sale “boosted“ the 2024 profit. The cooperative status, while involving regulatory constraints, has major tax advantages: “We are not taxed on turnover provided that at least 80% of it is generated by cooperative members. The cooperative is only taxable on the percentage of turnover generated with non-members, “says Jacques Cyprès. The SCAECC de Cercy now has six hundred members who benefit from very attractive rates on nominations. Each of them has acquired three shares for a total of 150 euros for three years. The absence of any other structure of the same type in France has enabled Cercy to extend its area of influence, and today any breeder domiciled in France can apply to join.
The Stud Expands its Borders The Cercy cooperative bought its facilities from the community of communes five years ago. It is expanding on about fifty hectares divided into two entities currently being developed. The “pavilion“ site will eventually be able to accommodate about fifty mares, which will notably allow the development of a year-round boarding activity. On the other site, known as “de l’étang“ (The Pond), new meadows will be laid out, with the idea also being to produce hay and cereals there. With its ten employees, including the emblematic director Philippe Thiriet, the Cercy stallion station is now the third largest employer in the commune.
TOP Tunis during the presentation of the Cercy stallions, which takes place every first Saturday of January.
© Haras de Cercy
RIGHT Cokoriko closes the show as the number 1 French stallion for steeplechase.
© Haras de Cercy
PHOTO Karaktar puts on a show for the great pleasure of the audience.
© Haras de Cercy
LE LION D’ANGERS ALSO ROARS
Another former National Stud that has managed to maintain its stallion provision vocation is Le Lion d’Angers, in the West of France. A simplified joint-stock company ( SAS ) was created in 2014 by the Haras de la Rousselière (Guillonnière family) and des Mottes (Poirier family), which leases the Le Lion facilities for six months a year. It employs two permanent staff, including François Thomas for the commercial side, with the team expanding during the breeding season. The SAS and the stud farms that make it up are shareholders in the stallions, including the very popular Castle and Clovis du Berlais and Hunter’s Light. “We started the activity in 2015 to keep good stallions nearby and we make all the decisions together with Arnaud Poirier. Our philosophy is not to lose money and to reinvest all the profits in the activity, “says the hyperactive Nelly de la Guillonnière. “It is becoming very difficult to acquire stallions and our organisation allows us to do so by pooling the risks. “Around seven hundred mares are covered at Le Lion each year, including one hundred and fifty trotting mares.
TRAINER
JEAN-CLAUDE ROUGET : HEART AND REASON
Leading French trainer by earnings in 2022 and 2023, the year of his second Prix du Jockey Club-Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe double , Jean-Claude Rouget finished 2024 in 5th position by earnings (3rd with premiums). Yet this is arguably the most impressive result of his career.
Stricken by illness at the very start of the season, he disappeared for several months, had to reorganise his operation, give up his Deauville stable after trying to join forces with Jérôme Reynier, and lost top owners and staff, all while battling illness. He reappeared on Equidia’s screens this autumn and again at the start of the year with reassuring news. He gave a promising smile as he answered the reporter’s questions. We are used to more extravagance, of course. Jean-Claude Rouget is both a reserved man and a public figure. When something is wrong, he says so on TV. When Avenir Certain won the Prix de Diane, he cried on TV. That ’ s how he is, Breton and Béarnais, businessman and horseman, gruff and charming, stubborn and open. Touching, mostly. Above all, he is a creator, the closest thing to a Renaissance man in the racing world, from a new breed of trainer-entrepreneurs. When Jean-Claude Rouget started training in 1978, at the age of 25, his father Claude, who himself had started at 39, told him he was going too fast.
Did the young man know where horses would take him, that is to say, to the top of a world that would have little to do with his own? He left for Pau, because after spending several winter meetings there with his father, he decided that it was a pleasant place to live and that the racing programmes in the region were well designed. Heart and reason, already. In partnership with Philippe Boisgontier, an outstanding horseman, he transformed his small jumps stable into a winner factory, and twelve years after starting out, he decided to devote himself exclusively to the Flat. He could no longer stand the falls and injuries, and the Flat opened all doors to him. Heart and reason, again. Very quickly, thanks to a perfect knowledge of the programme and a flawless organisation, and assistants capable of running the stable during trips to the racecourses and all the sales, the Rouget stable became the winning most in France. 120 in 1989, 178 in 1991, when he broke the record set by François Mathet with 173 winners in 1972, 222 in 1992, 242 in 1994, an absolute record, the year of Millkom, his first Group 1 winner . However, despite his string of victories and a few winning skirmishes in the Paris region, he was still seen as a provincial trainer who racked up wins with small horses before the big guns came out of the woods. In an interview published in the Thoroughbred Racing Commentary ten years ago, he admitte: “My colleagues thought I couldn’t saddle a Classic winner because I got my horses ready too early. The fact is that I was only trying to take what was available before the top stables reached their peak. “Heart and reason, indeed. A buyer from all walks of life, Jean- Claude Rouget understood that it was also in the United States that he could strengthen his string by spotting European-bred yearlings raised by Americans. In Europe too: born in England and bought at Newmarket, Millkom won the Prix Jean Prat (Gr.1) and the Grand Prix de Paris (Gr.1) in 1994 for Claude Gour, one of his first supporters. This horse would change everything. “Suddenly, the glass ceiling disappeared,“ Jean-Claude Rouget said in that same interview with TRC. “It made me think that we could go to Paris with our best horses. Everyone said it was impossible and that convinced me to try again. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t and we brought them back to our backyard. But we now had to be reckoned with.“ His heart told him he owed it to himself, his reason that he could do it. Always. Gradually, the race for the record number of wins took a back seat. Third leading French stable by earnings in 1974, the stable moved into 2nd position for the first time five years later, then seemed to cling to the top three until, in 2009, the third stage of the rocket finally rumbled away. In June, Jean-Claude Rouget saddled the winner of the Prix du Jockey Club, Le Havre, and the first two home in the Prix de Diane, Stacelita and Tamazirte. “I don’t know if the phone rang more than usual on the next day,“ the trainer would say humorously, “but the people who called were certainly not the same!“ An astute observer and a natural explorer, Jean-Claude Rouget had detected a transition in the organisation and programme of racing in France. Thanks to the nationalisation of the PMU calendar and a dizzying increase in prize money, thanks to the group of woners from all over France and the world that he had managed to build up, he had more resources at his disposal. He was able to gather all the fuel he needed to move to another level. 1994 and 2009 were two milestones that undoubtedly marked his rise the most, moments of liberation. The machine then went into overdrive, and the big wins piled up, with five more Prix du Jockey Clubs, three more Prix de Dianes, seven Poules d’Essai des Pouliches and two Prix de l’Arc de Triomphes... Only malign forces beyond our control could have influenced this flamboyant trajectory. Yet the stable held on during the ordeal. The ship is still there, following the currents, waiting for her captain to be able to devote all his heart and all his reason to her once again.
“ I DON ’ T KNOW IF THE PHONE RANG MORE THAN USUAL FROM THAT MOMENT ON , BUT THE PEOPLE WHO CALLED WERE NO LONGER THE SAME !” — Jean-Claude Rouget in TRC , 2015
PAGE 24 Jean-Claude Rouget flatters Millkom after his victory in the 1994 Grand Prix de Paris with Jean-René Dubosc . His career has just taken on a new dimension . © APRH
PAGE 25 Le Havre , one of the main roles at the Rouget Festival in June 2009 . © APRH
PAGE 26 Jean-Claude Rouget . © APRH
JOCKEY
MARIE VÉLON : ALWAYS MORE TO CLOSE THE GAP
Crowned best French female jockey for the fifth consecutive year in 2024 , Marie Velon is naturally our “ jockey of the month .“
Marie Vélon is at the top of her trade as a professional flat jockey in France. She boasts a win percentage close to 10%, and with nearly a hundred victories, she once again occupies 10th position in the jockeys’ rankings for 2024. Since her first title among female jockeys in 2020, her fifth season (fourth full season), she has also consistently ranked among the top ten riders in the country, including a 7th place in 2020 with a win percentage exceeding 12%. Last year, she won 99 races from 984 rides, another remarkable sporting achievement. However, these successes, built over time and through daily effort, have done less for her career and renown than the victories she achieved with Irésine, the champion trained by Jean-Pierre Gauvin. It was also for the trainer from the Loire region that she won her first race, at Cavaillon, in 2017. She was riding a former Aga Khan colt that day, having started her career with Alain de Royer Dupré. In retrospect, this can be seen as an omen, an encouragement to follow the path destiny had laid out for her. 2017 also marked the first season of the weight allowance for female jockeys in France, which accompanied her apprenticeship from then on. This controversial measure has become established practice and continues to serve its purpose of persuasion and justice. While they remain a minority in the fields, women now make up the majority of stable staff in the Country. They fill the ranks when fewer men pursue the challenging profession of jockey, which demands high-level athletic performance and conditions its practice to weights that have become rarer with the recent evolution of our species (read our study on the place of female jockeys in French racing in this issue). It is the intensity of this raw performance that often casts doubt on women’s ability to compete on equal terms with men. Thus, women are still rare in top-level races, as they do not benefit from their weight allowance at this level of competition. Marie Velon’s exploits with Irésine are therefore crucial for the cause of female jockeys in France. Jean-Pierre Gauvin’s champion won the Prix Royal-Oak (Gr.1) in 2023 and the Prix Ganay (Gr.1) in 2024, and his rider did not receive any weight allowance from her opponents. None of Irésine’s victories at the top level reflected an overwhelming superiority of the horse. It was a partnership that won these championships. “I ’ ve known him since the very beginning of his career,“ explains Marie. “He always had health problems and at the beginning he was just an average horse, rather fragile, but Jean-Pierre Gauvin knew how to respect him, to give him his chance, and I don’t know if he would have had such a career elsewhere. He ran the first time without me, but I had already ridden him in training. Then Alexis Larue took care of him, and Jean-Pierre took over last year when his usual exercise left. Irésine won his maiden on his second outing, at Vichy, and I didn’t ride him well that day, which made me think he had something. Then he ran at Lyon with some good horses and he left them for dead as soon as I asked him. That’s when we realised he was exceptional . But he really prefers soft ground. He has always been beaten on firmer going. With his big action and his head carriage, he doesn’t really use his back. With him, I know what to expect from the canter. As I know him well, I know if he’s in his element or not.“ Irésine will be back with us again this year, 2025, and his rider hopes to make headlines with him once more. For the rest, she will have to continue to travel all over the country with her pilgrim’s staff, to stay at the top: “It ’ s never easy and I had to fight until the end of 2024,“ recalls Marie, who finished 2 lengths ahead of her closest rival, Maryline Eon, 12th in the overall standings. “There are more and more talented girls, and you need a regular supply of rides and winners to be competitive. That corresponds to about a thousand rides, no matter what, and requires impeccable physical condition. And a bit of luck, of course.“ Jules Susini, Marie’s agent, has been in the business since 2009 and has been working with the leading female jockey since 2019. According to him, the perception of female riders by horsemen has improved significantly over the past fifteen years: “It has become extremely rare for someone to tell me that a horse is not suited to women,“ he explains. “ Jockeys like Marie, who show every day that they can compete with a man in a finish, have done a lot to improve the situation. They also often have the advantage of being able to ride at light weights, which is becoming increasingly difficult for many male riders. Overall, I would say that we are moving in the right direction. Psychological barriers have been broken down. Marie’s big wins have also counted for a lot, but I find that in racing, states of grace don’t last long. The day after big successes, anything is possible, but you quickly fall back into the usual trend. Female jockeys have to prove themselves more to achieve top-level jockey status, whereas, honestly, riders capable of riding 600 to 1,000 races a season are all at the same level.“ Let ’ s not beat ourselves up about it, though: in many other competitive sectors, women have to do more than men to achieve the same status.
“ JOCKEYS LIKE MARIE , WHO SHOW EVERY DAY THAT THEY CAN FIGHT WITH A MAN IN A STRAIGHT LINE , HAVE DONE A LOT TO IMPROVE THE SITUATION .” — Jules Susini , Marie Vélon’s agent
PAGE 28 Marie and Irésine during their victorious return from the Prix Ganay (Gr . 1) 2023 .. © APRH
WOMEN IN THE FIELD : WEIGHT ALLOWANCE KIND OF WORKS
From 2017 onwards, under the aegis of France Galop supremo Édouard de Rothschild, who made it a priority, female jockeys benefited from a systematic weight allowance of 2kg, reduced to 1.5kg the following year. Some minor adjustments followed to cap the differential for apprentices, but overall, the principle has not changed much, with Pattern races and most handicaps excluded from the races where the allowance rule is applied. These are Group and Listed races ( all breeds ), Class 1 conditions races, Class 2 conditions races for 2-year-olds and 3-year-olds, other races with prize money equal to or greater than €31,000, and feature races. Reading the statistics published in the invaluable Baromètre du Galop, now available on the France Galop website (link to the section dedicated to jockeys’ activity: https://www.france-galop.com/fr/tableau/jockeys), allows us to consider the impact of these measures on the activity of female jockeys in France on the flat. If we consider all “ professional “ licences, i.e. excluding amateur licences, we note that from 2014 to 2023, we have gone from 30% to 36% of women in the overall riders population. However, the total workforce has fallen by 29%, and more particularly by 36% among men. If we stick to the sole perimeter of professional riders, we note that the number of women enjoying this status has increased from 35 to 46 (+ 31%) in ten years, representing 12% to 22% of this population, while men’s bracket has lost 39%. In short, female jockeys are partly making up for a decline in the number of professional jockeys in France. However, they have less access to this status than men. Indeed, if in 2023 still, one male jockey in 1.7 was professional, only one woman in 3.3 had taken the plunge. This statistic was still one in five in 2014 and 2017. So there is progress. To put it simply, 20 % of active female jockeys were professional in 2017, compared to 30 % last year. We can therefore say that we are witnessing a phenomenon of professionalisation of female jockeys in this country. In terms of performance, there has also been clear progress for the female cause. Female jockeys represented 30% of all licensees before the allowance came into effect. However, they only accounted for 8% of rides and won 7% of races. In 2023, this has risen to 36% of licences , 21% of rides and 18% of wins (21% for the latter two figures in 2020, i.e. a correspondence between the share of rides and the share of wins). The same trend can be observed among professional female jockeys. From a purely quantitative point of view, we therefore seem to have arrived at a rather virtuous situation. However, it is still difficult to analyse the impact of these measures in qualitative terms. The fact that Marie Velon has been in the TOP 10 of French jockeys for the past five years, and that she has been able to win two Group 1 races with Irésine, seems to indicate that it is now possible to entrust valuable horses and real “ opportunities “ to female jockeys. Unfortunately, the reality is much more nuanced. Across the Channel, in Great Britain and Ireland, event in the States, there is no weight allowance reserved for women and yet, even over jumps, some of them shine every day and at the highest level. On the other hand, the statistics for jockeys in France in 2024, limited to Group and Listed races, show a large discrepancy. Marie Velon has 26 rides in this Pattern programme, in 24th position in the overall rating in this category by number of wins. She has two, with Irésine.
The next most in-demand female jockeys in France are Coralie Pacaut and Frida Valle Skar with 5 and 4 rides respectively. There are 13 others who also rode at this level in 2024 , including visitors Laura Pearson, Hollie Doyle, Hayley Turner and Saffie Osborne, and no other rode more than twice in this category during the year. In other words, when the stakes are high and there is no weight allowance on offer, female jockeys are, most of the time, excluded from the equation. The glass ceiling remains when it matters.
HONG KONG A KINGDOM WHERE GAMBLERS AS KING
In Hong Kong , horse racing is not merely a form of entertainment ; it is an institution meticulously orchestrated by the Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC).
With a season spanning from September to July, the intensive calendar features nearly 90 annual race meetings held at two racetracks: Happy Valley on Wednesday evenings and Sha Tin on Sundays. This model is built on rigorous management, including strict limitations on licensed trainers and jockeys, ensuring the elite of the discipline. With only two meetings per week, Hong Kong has chosen a measured pace that cultivates anticipation and desire among bettors, in contrast to other countries that saturate their schedules with an excessive number of events. With an astounding €16.6 billion prizemoney on horse racing during the 2023 / 2024 season, Hong Kong reaffirms its status as the world capital of racing betting. Bettors play a central role in this thriving ecosystem, with everything designed to support their choices. The Hong Kong Jockey Club’s (HKJC) website provides a wealth of resources: detailed analyses, horse performances, jockey rankings and more. This transparency and continuous support bolster bettors' confidence, contributing to the extraordinary vitality of Hong Kong’s horse racing industry.
The recipe for success
The HKJC has perfectly grasped the essence of horse racing as a spectacle: to captivate the audience, all elements of a great show must be present. A good storyline, with a well-structured calendar and thrilling competitions. A skilled director, embodied by the HKJC, orchestrating everything with precision and rigor. Outstanding actors — elite horses, talented jockeys and experienced trainers. And finally, a magnificent stage, with the iconic circuits of Sha Tin and Happy Valley offering modern infrastructures and an electrifying atmosphere. The bet has paid off: season after season, the audience, both spectators and participants, is present in force.