ENGLISH TEXTS maximum of three broodmares . For us , it was a phenomenal chance to have André as a trainer at the time . It was great .»
« I think he ’ s interested in his owners , in what they do . He ’ s a man of the world , that ’ s for sure . With his job , he meets relatively important people in political affairs , etc ., and I think he ’ s very happy to talk to them about all sorts of subjects ... He has also kept friends from his younger days , people he has remained very close to and who are not necessarily from the same world .»
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• Having come from Belgium , Ronny Dupon was a jockey for André Adèle at the same time as André Fabre .
His father was at that time at the French embassy in England , it was in the 70s . You could tell he was very well brought up . Nevertheless , we used to school horses together in the morning and ride bikes to lose weight . And so , as he lived in Saint-Germain , we went to eat together two or three times in a small restaurant there . But it wasn ’ t the height of luxury . He wasn ’ t at all pretentious . I phoned him a few years ago to ask if I could go and watch a training session with him . He said there was no problem and that I could go and see him at 10 am . So I was there at 10 am sharp at his place in Chantilly , but I wouldn ’ t have wanted to be late . Everything was timed to the minute , because he told me , he was going to eat at 11 am before going to the races ! At Mr Adèle ’ s , it was very different . Summer or winter , we always took the horses out at the same time . Hot or not hot , cold or not cold , the first lot always went out at 8 am . Only , we were 45 on horseback and we weren ’ t in the Maisons-Laffitte park , but on Avenue de Saint-Germain . So we had to cross the main road from Paris to Poissy to go to work . But we could only cross in groups of fifteen . So , in fact , it wasn ’ t 8 o ’ clock for everyone , because the latecomers joined the group while waiting to cross the main road . It was a bit chaotic . In the end , we had a good laugh , but we don ’ t necessarily have that image of Mr Adèle . He had 200 horses , and he knew them all , of course . He didn ’ t like us bothering the horses , washing their legs , or brushing them . In the evening , when he did his rounds , if he saw you brushing your horse too much , he ’ d say , ‘ Oh , my lad , leave him some hair ! A rabbit runs fast and you ’ ve never brushed it !’ He hardly ever gave orders . I just remember one exception . With a horse I was riding for Mr Jeffroy and which had stopped dead at the river by the stands . He said to me , ‘ Ronny , when you get to the river , you hide behind another horse so the horse cannot quite see the river jump .’ And we got over , to finish second . I found myself on it again afterwards and this time the trick didn ’ t work . We got over , but I had all four legs in the water . I ’ ve even got the photo here at home !’»
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• Claude Beniada , former trainer and journalist , representative of the late Khalid Abdullah and Juddmonte Farms in France
« I have a lot of respect and admiration for André Fabre , whom I have known for forty years . Everything he has achieved in his training career in France and abroad is unparalleled here and there is no doubt that his record will remain unmatched for a long time to come . In June 1988 , I was at the races in Chantilly and on the programme was a maiden for 2-year-old unraced horses over 1,200 metres in a straight line . André Fabre presented one of his horses ridden by Cash Asmussen . At the time , there weren ’ t televisions everywhere on the racecourse and the best way to see the final stages of these races was to stand 100m before the post , behind the rail opposite the stands . From this position you have a perfect view of the last 600 metres of the race after the climb and the final sprint . So I was stationed at this spot , alongside André Fabre . His horse won brilliantly with disconcerting ease . I congratulated him and he made this comment as he put away his binoculars : « That ’ s very good . He ’ s undoubtedly going to make a very good horse over 2,400 metres .» It was June of his two-year-old ’ s year and André Fabre was already looking much further ahead . I have never forgotten these words , especially since this horse was called In The Wings , that he belonged to the first crop of Sadler ’ s Wells , which we did not yet know what an extraordinary stallion he was going to become , and that In The Wings became one of the best 2,400-metre horses in the world . Since then , I have always listened with the greatest attention to André Fabre ’ s every comment on one of his horses and having had the privilege of working with him for many years for Juddmonte , I can testify to the extraordinary quality of his judgement on the horses he trains . This is , without a doubt , one of the many reasons for his extraordinary success .»
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