ENGLISH TEXTS
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TRAINER
By Emmanuel Roussel
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 5 th position by earnings ( 3 rd 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 admitted : “ 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 2 nd 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
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