ENGLISH VERSION
FIRE QUESTIONS
1. HIS FAVOURITE SPORT AFTER RACING?
G. T. He doesn’ t play any other sports, but he follows football as an AC Milan supporter. We also watch tennis, with a whole country’ s champion, Jannik Sinner.
2. MUSIC OR FILMS?
G. T. He loves films, thrillers in particular.
3. HOLIDAY STYLE?
G. T. We take a holiday after Japan, before the Cagnes meeting. He never completely switches off, but we manage to enjoy it as a family, the three of us with our daughter Matilde.
4. SUPERSTITIOUS?
G. T. Without a doubt. He is very superstitious. He has rituals of his own, which he doesn’ t necessarily talk about.
4. WHAT OTHER JOB COULD HE HAVE DONE?
G. T. A chef. Cristian really loves good food, maybe because of his diets( laughs). His pasta carbonara is excellent!
BACK TO ARTICLE
LA UNE THE IMPACT
OF ROUGET
THE MAN
BORN AND BRED
BY PIERRE CHAMPION
Jean-Claude Rouget was born into racing, in Lisieux, in the Calvados département, in the summer of 1953. His grandfather and his father, Claude, were both in the business, first in breeding and then in training. Indeed, after managing the prestigious stud of Jean Stern and his wife in Normandy, while pursuing a fine career as a gentleman rider, Claude Rouget took up training, paving the way for his son. He chose the west of France as his base, settling in Senonnes, in Mayenne. Before moving there, he used to say, he had looked at a map and noticed that the site in Mayenne was, in a way, central, as it was close to a number of racecourses, which made travelling much more efficient. Claude Rouget would enjoy considerable success as a trainer, mainly at regional level, both on the Flat and over jumps, and even worked for a time with Daniel Wildenstein, when the latter relocated part of his string to the regions in the 1960s.
A CALLING IN PAU Jean-Claude Rouget grew up in this world. He went to school in Laval, where he became friends with Joël Séché and Jean-Luc Bigeon, the trotting professional. He developed a keen interest in athletics, as a middle-distance runner, and made his mark, notably becoming Brittany champion over 1,500 metres at the age of 19. At the same time, he rode for his father and, in turn, took out his gentleman rider’ s licence. His calling as a trainer soon became clear, following in the footsteps of his father, who had come to the profession later in life. He did placements in Chantilly with Jean-Michel de Choubersky – just like, incidentally, his contemporary and future great rival of the early years, Henri-Alex Pantall – and Freddy Palmer, as well as in England with Paul Cole and Ian Balding. Then, in 1978, aged just 25, the time came for him to take the plunge and strike out on his own. He set his sights on Pau, a place he knew well, as his father went down there every winter for the jumps meeting, where he enjoyed more than his fair share of success.
STARTING OUT OVER JUMPS Jean-Claude Rouget quickly made the Pau training centre his own, and over time he would play a major part in developing it considerably. He started out small, however, with hardly any owners. That did not stop him winning with his very first runner. At the time he trained both on the Flat and over jumps,
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