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The World Now Watches the Race That Stops a Nation

It is very clear how important the Melbourne Cup is within Australia. Observers at Tattersalls last week were left in no doubt of that. A large proportion of the most expensive lots were bought to head Down Under, with the Melbourne Cup repeatedly mentioned as the ultimate target. It is now, though, a major race both within Australasia and internationally, its global appeal having increased dramatically 30 years ago in the 3 minutes 23.43 seconds which it took Vintage Crop (Ire) to take the prize on the first Tuesday in November 1993.

That triumphant breakthrough represented the moment when the Cup became a truly global event, but it had been a major landmark both domestically and internationally since the 19^th century. The respect which the two words 'Melbourne Cup' generated in the Victorian era was shown by the purchase in 1895 of Carbine (NZ), the highlight of whose 33 wins had been when he had won the Cup in 1890, carrying 10 stone 5lb and giving 53lb to the runner-up. By 1895 Carbine had made a promising start to his stud career and his fame was enough to persuade the Duke of Portland to recruit him, at a price of 13,000 guineas, to stand in England alongside reigning champion sire St. Simon (GB) at Welbeck Abbey Stud in Nottinghamshire. He was a great success there, most notably spawning a three-generation sequence of Derby winners, starting with his son Spearmint (GB) in 1906.

The iconic Melbourne Cup | Racingfotos.com

A second Melbourne Cup winner followed hot on Carbine's heels when the 1896 winner Newhaven (Aus) headed north after that season's Sydney Autumn Carnival. His part-owner Mr Cooper had bought a seat on the London Stock Exchange so he arranged that Newhaven would come to England with him.

The highlight of Newhaven's career in England came when he won the City And Suburban H. at Epsom in 1899, reportedly winning connections £50,000 in bets. Unfortunately, though, he could not follow Carbine into the ranks of British-based stallions as he was not accepted into the (British) General Stud Book because of doubts supposedly held about the identity of his fourth dam. Consequently, he had to return to Australia to begin his stud career.

Remarkably, Newhaven was not the greatest Australian horse racing in England during the final years of the 19^th century. That honour was held by Merman (Aus). Having ended the Spring Carnival in Melbourne in 1896 by winning the Williamstown Cup, Merman was brought to England, where he was bought by the famous actress Lillie Langtry for 1,600 guineas.

Merman became a remarkable trouper in his adopted homeland, ensuring that Australian stayers would be revered worldwide for decades. The highlight of his three wins in his first season in England, 1897, came when he won the Cesarewitch H. at Newmarket. At the same meeting the following season he won the Jockey Club Cup, having run well in the Cambridgeshire H. the previous day and in the Cesarewitch H. the day before that. His toughness and class were also in evidence at Glorious Goodwood the following summer, when he won both the Goodwood Plate and the Goodwood Cup. Age and exertion did not weary him because it turned out that he was saving the best 'til last: in 1900, aged eight, he won the greatest staying prize of them all, the Gold Cup at Ascot.

One race which particularly illustrated the strength in depth of Australian horses racing in England at the time was the Epsom Gold Cup (now G1 Coronation Cup) at the Derby Meeting in 1898 when Merman was one of three antipodean imports in the field, alongside Newhaven and the 1896 VRC Newmarket H. winner Maluma (Aus). Furthermore, when Merman contested the Cambridgeshire that autumn, he finished behind the imported winner Georgic (Aus), previously successful in the AJC All-Aged S. at Randwick in 1895.

Two-Way Traffic for Top Stayers

Red Cadeaux, with Robin Trevor Jones and rider Steven Nicholson, was second in three Cups | Emma Berry

It was not all one-way traffic, of course. The Australian Stud Book was built on imports, with such horses differentiated from the colonial-breds by an asterisk printed alongside their names. It was the norm for the Melbourne Cup to be won by a horse with at least one imported parent, but the first winner of the race bred in Europe was Comedy King (GB) (Persimmon {GB}), successful in 1910.

Leading Melbourne-based bookmaker Sol Green had gone to England on holiday in 1906 and bought some horses there. One was the Gallinule mare Tragedy Queen (GB), purchased from the Royal Studs, in foal Persimmon. Green left the mare in England but once the resultant foal, Comedy King, had been weaned he was exported to Australia (forging a path subsequently trodden by the Somerset-born three-time Melbourne Cup heroine Makybe Diva).

Just as Comedy King took Makybe Diva's route to Melbourne Cup glory nearly a century before the great mare won her three Cups, so did the 1924 winner Backwood (GB) foreshadow the legion of Australian owners, trainers and agents who nowadays shop at Tattersalls with future Melbourne Cups in mind. A dual winner at a mile and a half in England, Backwood was bought by Australian owners E. L. Baillieu and W. Clark for 2,500 guineas in the hope that he would win the Cup in 1923. He disappointed badly that year won 12 months later, trained at Flemington by Richard Bradfield.

Hopes were high during the war that the Royal Studs would yield another Melbourne Cup winner, following Comedy King. After three unplaced runs in England for King George VI, the Hyperion horse Helios (GB) was sold to race in Australia. He was shaping up nicely until misadventure struck: he injured himself by over-reaching when pulling up from a track gallop at Flemington, fracturing his near-fore pastern, and had to be retired. The story had a happy ending though, as he became champion sire in 1948/'49 and overall sired the winners of over 1,000 races, with one of his best sons being the 1954 Melbourne Cup winner Wodalla (Aus).

The Melbourne Cup naturally began to feature on the international radar more and more as time passed. By the 1980s, improved air-travel and improved communications were making the world a smaller place.

Sangster Backs the Cup

Robert Sangster's love for Australia meant that the Melbourne Cup came to join the Derby on his list of most coveted prizes. One of the first horses transferred by him from England to Colin Hayes in South Australia was Beldale Ball, whom he had bought out of Michael Jarvis's Newmarket stable in 1979. Beldale Ball thrived under Hayes's care to the extent that he recorded a glorious triumph in the Melbourne Cup in 1980.

Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum too began to focus on Australian racing, the flames of his enthusiasm fanned by the passion of his manager Angus Gold. At Talaq (Roberto) had carried the Shadwell silks into fourth place in the Derby in 1984 at 250/1 when trained in Newmarket by Harry Thomson Jones; two years later, prepared by Colin Hayes, he won the Melbourne Cup. (The same team would win a second Melbourne Cup in 1994 with Jeune (GB), a Royal Ascot winner bought out of Geoff Wragg's stable specifically to try to win the great race).

Within Australia, Lloyd Williams's Melbourne Cup ambitions were continuing to grow. Prominent in the syndicates which raced the Tommy Smith-trained 1981 Cup winner Just A Dash (Aus) and the John Meagher-trained 1985 Cup winner What A Nuisance (NZ), Williams learned the lessons provided by Beldale Ball and At Talaq. Another horse who caught his attention was Natski (Ire), a maiden race winner at Redcar for Luca Cumani in 1987 who, sold to Australia, was trained by Jack Denham to fail by only inches behind Empire Rose (NZ) in the Melbourne Cup the following year. Also in the field that day was Authaal (Ire), trained by Colin Hayes for Sheikh Mohammed. The son of Shergar had previously won the G1 Irish St Leger in 1986 when trained by David O'Brien.

Williams sent John Meagher, accompanied by Pat Carey, to England to find some suitable prospects and they nearly hit the jackpot straightaway when they selected the Aga Khan's Naiyrizi (Ire), bought out of Luca Cumani's stable after winning at Ascot, Windsor and Doncaster in 1988. During the Melbourne Spring Carnival in 1989 Nayrizi won the VATC Herbert Power H. before finishing a close second to Cole Diesel (Aus) in the VATC Caulfield Cup a week later. Williams has, of course, bought many European horses since then and during the current century has won four Cups with European-bred horses, trained either in Australia or Ireland.

Ireland's Breakthrough

The momentum of interest and competition building, it was only a matter of time before European-trained horses began to contest the Cup. The breakthrough of British-trained horses running in Australasia had come in the late '80s when the G1 Tancred S. in Sydney and the G1 Air New Zealand S. in New Zealand were being promoted as international races. England's two most pioneering trainers, John Dunlop and Clive Brittain, rose to the challenge. The Melbourne Cup had to come next, particularly as it was sponsored by Carlton & United Brewery, which had recently broken into the European market in a major way with the booming worldwide popularity of Foster's Lager. That is exactly what came to pass thirty years ago, on the first Tuesday of November 1993.

Two European trainers each sent a horse to Flemington in 1993. From England, Lord Huntingdon (who had trained at Warwick Farm in Sydney for a couple of years in the late '70s) sent the Ascot Gold Cup winner Drum Taps, the mount of Frankie Dettori. From Ireland, Dermot Weld sent the previous year's Cesarewitch H. winner Vintage Crop, ridden by Mick Kinane. This bold challenge was meat and drink for Weld, who had already become the first European trainer to saddle the winner of a US Triple Crown race (Go And Go (Ire) in the 1990 Belmont S.) and the first to win a race at the Hong Kong International Meeting (Additional Risk (Ire) in the 1991 HK Bowl).

Drum Taps, ridden by Frankie Dettori, found it hard under top weight of 58.5kg, finishing ninth. But Vintage Crop, carrying 3kg less and feeling at home in the rain which lashed Flemington that afternoon, was sublime. Bearing the colours of Dr Michael Smurfit, Vintage Crop came home three lengths in front of Te Akau Nick (NZ), who had recently become the first Group 1 winner trained by Gai Waterhouse by winning the G1 AJC Metropolitan H. at Randwick. As Mick Kinane brought Vintage Crop back to scale, an emotional Weld delighted the local press corps by reciting lines from A. B. 'Banjo' Paterson's 'A Bush Christening' in the winner's enclosure. It was a very special way for the international racing landscape to be changed forever.

European Success Grows

Protectionist, the sole German-trained winner of the Melbourne Cup | Emma Berry

Since then, raiders from Europe for the Melbourne Cup have become the norm. The first leg of Melbourne's 'Cups Double' has also become a regular target, with Europe's breakthrough in that race coming in 1998 when Ray Cochrane brought the Lady Herries-trained Taufan's Melody (Ire) home in front.

Weld and Dr Smurfit won the Melbourne Cup again in 2002 with Media Puzzle. Since then, four other countries have claimed the prize. Japan won it in 2006 with the Katsuhiko Sumii-trained Delta Blues (Jpn). Alain de Royer-Dupre and Mikel Delzangles won it for France in 2010 and '11, courtesy of Americain and Dunaden (Fr). German trainer Andreas Wohler supplied the hero in 2014, Protectionist (Ger). Godolphin won in 2018 with Cross Counter (GB), trained in England by Charlie Appleby. Furthermore, Weld's feat of supplying two winners has been matched by his compatriot Joseph O'Brien, courtesy of Rekindling (Ire) and Twilight Payment (Ire) in 2017 and 2020 respectively, both horses owned by Lloyd Williams..

Any overview of European achievers in the Melbourne Cup wouldn't be complete without mentioning Luca Cumani in dispatches, thanks to a run of narrow defeats, none closer than the pixel or two by which Bauer (GB) was edged out by the Bart Cummings-trained Viewed (Aus) in 2008. Another Newmarket-based trainer to have played a chief supporting role has been Ed Dunlop, whose ultra-genuine charge Red Cadeaux (GB) wrote his name into Cup history as the only horse to finish second in the race three times (in 2011, '13 and '14).

Nowadays, Australian owners and trainers seem intent on buying nearly all of the most likely European Cup prospects. Many were in action at Tattersalls last week and the recent domination of major Australian staying races by European-breds does not seem likely to end any time soon.

The internationalisation of the Melbourne Cup has been a gradual process with many heroes playing their part. Comedy King and Backwood both made special contributions, but none stand taller than Vintage Crop, Dermot Weld, Mick Kinane and Dr Smurfit. The significance of their breakthrough triumph 30 years ago will live forever as the day on which 'the race which stops a nation' became a race which the world watches.

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A Man Of His Time

When the gates open for the G1 Hong Kong Vase on Sunday, Ebaiyra (Distorted Humor) will be bidding to round off her trainer Alain de Royer Dupré's 49-year career with a 94^th Group 1 win.

Now pause. And read that sentence again.

Forty-nine years. Ninety-three Group 1 victories. Almost two per season. And a mind-boggling total of 320 wins at Group level.

Royer Dupré's retirement from the training ranks brings the curtain down on a whole chapter of French and international racing history. It is quite fitting that his final significant runner sets off at Sha Tin's international race meeting, a fixture at which Royer Dupré has been a regular participant. And a successful one, having sent Pride (Fr) (Peintre Celebre) to win the Hong Kong Cup in 2006 and Daryakana (Fr) (Selkirk) to capture the Vase in 2009.

With the benefit of hindsight, it can be argued that Royer Dupré's career has mirrored, or perhaps preceded, the evolution of French racing. From his beginnings in show jumping and eventing to the winner's enclosure of Longchamp, Hollywood Park, Ascot, Woodbine, Flemington, Arlington, The Curragh or Meydan, he has ridden the crest of a wave that carried globalisation, emphasis on speed and the rise of hugely lucrative race meetings worldwide. Back in 1984, on only his second season of training for the Aga Khan, he sent out the G2 winner Lashkari (GB) (Mill Reef) to land the inaugural running of the Breeders' Cup Turf. The relative ease of modern-day overseas travel doesn't do justice to the level of boldness required for a young trainer to undertake such a trip with a 3-year-old back in the 1980s. Twenty-six years later, Royer Dupré again broke new ground by becoming the first French-based trainer, and only the second European, to win the Melbourne Cup.

Boldness is actually a quality that the master trainer half-heartedly concedes to himself, and without which we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

“I started in racing by working on Madame Couturié's Haras du Mesnil for eight years,” he recalls. “I was in an ideal situation to have a career in breeding, but I decided to start up training, which I knew nothing about, because I was missing the competitive aspect of racing. It was this decision that changed my life.”

Royer Dupré began in 1972 with a handful of jumpers in the west of France. He quickly proved successful and topped the regional leader board several times. Having trained some of His Highness's second string there, he made the move to Chantilly in 1981 upon the Aga Khan's invitation, before taking over at the helm of his private training centre of Aiglemont following François Mathet's death two years later. Asked to reflect on racing's changes throughout the half-century he has spent with a licence, he says, “There has certainly been a growing emphasis on shorter distances. The shorter trip of the Prix du Jockey-Club is just one example of this trend. There has also been a move towards using horses earlier, without necessarily giving them the amount of time they require. This is an ongoing trend, which I believe will meet its limits one day.”

Picking up on the first of these tendancies, I point out that the stock of the Aga Khan Studs historically performed over short distances. Those trained by Royer Dupré proved no exception, as the first Group 1 he won for His Highness was the 1100-metre Prix Robert Papin with the 2-year-old filly Masarika (GB) (Thatch), who went on to take the Poule d'Essai des Pouliches.

His reaction is typically insightful. “Indeed there was plenty of speed in the Aga Khan families, although Masarika was not a typical example as she was out of a mare who had been purchased individually,” he concedes. “More speed was brought into the pedigrees through the purchase of Jean-Luc Lagardère's stock, which was rich in American bloodlines. They resulted in Siyouni (Fr), for instance. But to go back to Masarika, her career was only made possible thanks to Yves Saint-Martin's exceptional riding skills. That a horse with so much speed was able to win over mile is a great testimony to his natural ride. He never fought with a horse.”

The acknowledgement of jockeys' contribution is a recurring theme in Royer Dupré's recollection of his accomplishments.

He continues, “Yves Saint-Martin played a major role in the early part of my tenure at Aiglemont. When I took over from François Mathet, I wasn't yet familiar with the training facilities at Chantilly. Galloping horses on the grass was new to me. He taught me an awful lot about these things. He was an outstanding rider and really helped me in producing the best out of every horse. To some extent, Yves's natural, fluid riding reminded me of my equestrian background and of my experience alongside one of the best eventing riders during my military service. Later on, Gérald Mosse would take on a similar role in the Aga Khan stable. He absolutely loved to fine-tune a horse and was brilliant at it.”

Christophe Soumillon is another jockey to have left his mark on Royer Dupré's career.

“When he took up the role as retained jockey for the Aga Khan, it was the first time His Highness was calling upon an apprentice for this position,” says the trainer. “I think his youthful ardour proved a huge benefit for the yard. He had a unique connection with certain horses, starting with Dalakhani (Ire). There was something special between those two.”

The same can arguably be said of the connection between Alain de Royer Dupré and His Highness the Aga Khan, for whom he will have trained a record 43 years.

“I was extremely lucky to meet His Highness”, he says. “The paramount component of his philosophy is that he is a breeder at heart. His horses are trained and raced with the single purpose of selecting the best specimen to breed from. It was always made very clear to me, and all decisions were taken according to this motto. One of the consequences was that I was never rushed to produce a horse, and it placed me in the best possible conditions to succeed. Rushing causes mistakes. A lot of owner nowadays struggle to come to terms with this, and I can understand that it requires a long education for someone without an equestrian background. I remember one of my riding instructors saying 'Perfection does not exist, but to get close to it, one must reach for excellence'. In hindsight, it is a good description of what drove my work over the years. Throughout my career, I have basically seen two ways of training racehorses: you either have a very large number and expect the horses to adapt to the system, or you adapt to every horse. I always trained according to the second method, which is why I never had huge numbers. We usually had between 80 and 90 horses at Aiglemont, and around 60 in my personal yard.”

Those numbers were even lower when Royer Dupré took up the Aga Khan job, as France was a smaller part of the operation back then.

“Things were quite different when I started up at Aiglemont,” he recalls. “Ninety-five per cent of the horses were bred in Ireland at the time, and I was the only French-based trainer. It is really as a consequence of the successive purchases of the operations of Marcel Boussac, François Dupré and then Jean-Luc Lagardère that the French studs developed and became more influential. But apart from that, there was a lot of continuity in the way things were done. In a recent video, His Highness said that I had been present to 'maintain the stable's level', and I am happy to be remembered for this accomplishment.”

His own, uncontested highlight remains the faultless campaigning of Zarkava (Fr) (Zamindar), a filly “who didn't stand out physically but was incredibly talented”.

“To me, Zarkava was the culmination of the Aga Khan's endeavour,” he says. “She traces back to the greatest mares in Mumtaz Mahal and Petite Etoile, but when Zarkava arrived in the yard, this family had gone quiet, it was almost extinct. It took the Aga Khan a lot of patience to sustain this family, and for Zarkava to achieve what she did was the perfect outcome. It really is what breeding is about.”

The evocation of breeding's purpose brings us to the evolution of the breed, another oft-debated topic, and I am keen to find out what kind of changes Royer Dupré observed in his extended career.

“The growing emphasis on speed has shaped the breed differently, that is for sure”, he notes. “The result hasn't always been positive though, and we are seeing more and more horses with a heavy back end and a tendency to be upright, which doesn't suit our turf tracks. Talking about tracks, I believe that the growing number of fixtures is proving detrimental to the horses. I hear some people argue that today's horses are more fragile and there might some truth in this assertion, but my view is that overused tracks are responsible for a lot of injuries. We start our morning routine very early in order to gallop our horses on fresh turf. On the racecourse, you don't have that opportunity.”

Another fitting testimony of Royer Dupré's capacity to evolve in harmony with his time comes in the fact that he took over at Aiglemont from François Mathet, then very much the incarnation of the racehorse trainer, and will be succeeded by his former assistant Francis-Henri Graffard, who arguably embodies the figure of the modern horse trainer.

I ask him what his final words to his successor will be, and he replies with a smile, “I still have a few days on my hands to think about them, but I will basically share with him the guidelines I have followed for 49 years: all methods are interesting, as long as you don't diverge from the fundamentals, that is to say the rules of nature.”

What will Alain de Royer Dupré be up to after these words have been spoken and the baton handed over?

“I will tack up my hack and go for a ride around Les Aigles”, he says happily. “After so many years of being head down into my job, I am excited to be able to take a step back and watch all aspects of racing, including breeding and training, from a different perspective. I will also try to make up for the time I didn't spend with my family. A trainer's family does suffer. One of my daughters is in show jumping at a high level and I am looking forward to getting more involved with her.”

Whether in his work or in retirement, excellence remains the objective for Alain de Royer Dupré.

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Nigge On The Bridge For International Success

DEAUVILLE, France—Stephanie Nigge may have been born and bred in Deauville, the town in which she now trains, but she has travelled a long way to get there. And in many ways, her two major patrons reflect both her roots and her stints on the international racing circuit.

Gerard Augustin-Normand, one of France’s biggest owner-breeders and a fellow Norman, has had a long association with the Nigge family, having initially had horses in training with Stephanie’s father Markus, who also trains in Deauville. Augustin-Normand now has 10 horses in training with Stephanie, as does Australian Gerry Ryan, whose most notable previous association with a French-trained runner was as the co-owner of top stayer Americain (Dynaformer).

On Saturday, the 33-year-old Nigge will saddle her first Group 1 runner when Normandy Bridge (Fr) (Le Havre {Ire}) lines up for the Criterium International at Saint-Cloud. Given the name and the sire of the colt, it would be easy to jump to the conclusion that he races in the colours of Le Havre’s owner Augustin-Normand, but in fact he is owned by Ryan and was selected for him by fellow Australian John Foote at last year’s Arqana October Sale. Bred by Haras du Mezeray and Ecurie Skymarc Farm, Normandy Bridge was bought for €80,000 and is unbeaten in his two starts to date. He has already had a positive experience on the Saint-Cloud turf through his victory in the G3 Prix Thomas Bryon earlier this month.

It was through the 2010 Melbourne Cup winner Americain that Nigge first met Ryan, when she was working for the horse’s trainer Alain de Royer Dupre.

“I had worked a while in Germany for Christian von der Recke and then I spent a winter in Dubai for Mario Hofer before going to Alain de Royer Dupre for three years,” recalls Nigge, whose parents Markus and Sabine are both German. “Americain arrived around the same time and I had the chance to travel with him. I stayed with him for a year in Australia when he was with David Hayes and then I took him to Calumet Farm to say goodbye.”

She adds, “I was 23 at the time and was on my own in Australia, so Gerry and his family took me for lunches and dinners and really looked after me.”

Five years ago, Nigge started training in partnership with her father before taking out a licence in her sole name in February, a month before France went into lockdown. Her father is now assisted by her brother, Daniel.

“When racing stopped I was just wondering how I was going to survive the year,” she says. “Thank God I had Mr Ryan and Mr Augustin-Normand as owners. They left the horses in the yard and they have been very supportive.”

Nigge has been swift to repay that support. Normandy Bridge may be the flagship horse of her stable but she has also been in the winner’s enclosure this season with Ryan’s Zealandia (Fr) (Sea The Moon {Ger}), while the current good form of her stable was highlighted at a sundappled Deauville on Thursday when two Augustin-Normand runners, both by Le Havre, acquitted themselves well on debut. Millebosc (Fr) got the better of Godolphin’s Mond (Ger) (Sea The Moon {Ger}) to win the opening Prix de Saint-Desir, while the filly Vrigny (Fr) ran home in eye-catching fashion to take second in the Prix d’Hotot-en-Auge. Both will now be put away ahead of their 3-year-old campaigns.

For Nigge, training in Deauville isn’t just a good excuse to come home but it also offers her a number of additional benefits, not least the fact that her stable, with its pair of goats roaming free among the boxes, is, for anyone with a good pitching arm, a stone’s throw from the racecourse.

“I was born here and I like to take my horses to the beach,” she says. “I worked in Chantilly, which is a great training facility, but for me I like to train on the racecourse. I think it is good for the horses to learn to breathe on the final turn, and to change legs, and I think it’s much easier to do that on the racecourse. We are all struggling to find good riders and when you train on the track the horses do it on their own. In Chantilly you train in straight lines, and it is beautiful, but if you don’t have the experienced riders who can help the horses to change their legs and to take a breath it is not so easy.”

She continues, “The fact that we have all the big studs around here also means we can spell the horses. There is racing now from 1 January to 31 December and for me I feel the horses need at least four weeks off every year. We have 100 race days a year in Deauville, so there is nearly one day of racing for every three or four days. We really focus on the meetings in Deauville so we don’t have to travel too much, and there are races for every class of horse here. It’s so easy to go from my stable to the races.”

It is also easy for her to get to the sales. Our interview is conducted on the final day of the week-long Arqana October Sale where Normandy Bridge was unearthed by Foote last year. Nigge, who race-rode for several years, had already ridden out with her string before walking around the corner to try to find her next star among the current batch of yearlings.

Her mind can’t help but wander to Saturday afternoon, however.

“It’s a big day for all of us,” she admits. “I was planning not to run him in the Group 1 but he is so well—in fact he was so much better after the [Prix Thomas Bryon] than he was before. For me, this is a race to prepare for next year because though he has won twice he has never really had much competition.”

Following his purchase last October, Normandy Bridge was broken in by Philippe Prevost-Barratte and joined Nigge’s stable before Christmas.

“We saw quickly that he was a great mover,” she says. “He is a big horse so we took our time. He had a light canter or two on the grass in the spring but we didn’t really work him. By August we felt he had matured a little and so we gave him three gallops and I nominated him for the Prix de Fontenoy at Longchamp. He hadn’t really had that much work for that but I know my horses and first time out they are very relaxed. They tend to wake up a bit for the second race so I wanted him to stay at the same distance [1,600 metres]. My jockey [Theo Bachelot] had walked the track beforehand and said that the outside was firmer than inside. I asked him to take his time and if he had enough petrol left to go on the outside. He went wide and he just flew home.”

Despite such a major race looming, the trainer’s thoughts are also already straying into next year, and she has plenty of options with Normandy Bridge whom she feels will “stay for sure”. In many respects, the Criterium International is merely the next stepping stone for the colt who potentially has a big future but so far little experience.

Nigge says of his 3-year-old campaign, “He will run first time probably in April and maybe we would have to educate him all over again. On Saturday we have barrier two and I want him to be among the field and in competition with the others to prepare him for next year. If he’s very good, as we think he is, he probably will have one or two races before a big one—I don’t know if we will go for the Guineas or the Derby.”

Winning a Classic in her home country is doubtless high on the young trainer’s wish list, but she has also the desire to revisit some of the countries she has experienced on her racing travels.

“My parents are the first generation in my family to be involved with horses. Forty years ago they came here and couldn’t speak any French. They were both just passionate about horses,” she says. “I have had the chance to travel a lot so I have picked up little things from everywhere that I think help me in what I am doing now.”

She continues, “The first horse I bought, Treviere (Fr), was for Mr and Mrs Colin Bamford and Mr Ryan, the same owners as Americain. I took him to Australia for the G1 Toorak H. and he finished second. That was my first runner, though I didn’t have my training licence so he ran for my dad.

“I have also been to Dubai with horses for different trainers. I love travelling and I am really keen to travel my horses.”

In the meantime, however, the clients have travelled to her, and a first Group 1 winner for a major Australian owner would do Nigge’s international profile no harm at all.

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