Many of you will have noticed the success that we have been have recently with young horses that have come over from France so i thought that it might be interesting to give you a little background as to how this journey started.
During a holiday in France with friends and prolific owners 'The Hanbury's' one summer, my father could not resist a visit to the local National Hunt stud called Haras De Cercy which is in the middle of France near Nevers.
He inevitably bought a horse called Arthur's Secret, who won in his first season and Jake my younger brother was second on him at Auteuil. Dad was there and was hooked !
We had been over to France when myself and my brother Thomas had ridden out there and always had a good time and as we had stopped riding Dad felt it would be a fun thing for him do. So he decided, along with a couple of friends, to then invest in a number of foals.The idea was that they would run as three year olds in France with the possibility of selling them or bringing them over to the UK for us to train.
Dad goes over twice a year to the stud to look and pick the foals, to see the horses in training and to go racing. The majority of horses are trained by Francois Nicole as well as Emmanuel Clayeux and a few others.
Coko Riko HP Sire
The stud is run by the Cypres family whose ancestors started the AQPS breed and owned and bred the famous horse 'The Fellow'.
The AQPS breed are to this day a major player in the National Hunt game with horses such as Kauto Star and Neptune Colognes. They have around 30 mares at their home farm, all with lovely pedigrees. In the local town is where they have all the stallions and Mr Cypres is the President and the whole family are very involved putting a foal show on every year where all the main agents and breeders attend. They have several very nice stallions including Cokoriko and Pour Moi at the moment and Cokoriko has really flown as a sire recently and is the father of our very promising new recruit Homme Public.
Herbier at the sales in Deauville
The first foals to come through and do well were Arthur's Secret and Campeador. Arthurs's secret was sold to the UK and Campeador to Ireland where they both won plenty of races. Since then Glajou has been sold to Paul Nichols where he has won. They are all AQPS horses and each year they have to be named by a certain letter and then it moves on. Arthur's Secret was 2010 when dad started and as we moved on we are now training the G's (2016) and H's (2017). Both have been really strong groups, with Gaboriot winning at Auteuil, Gesskille finishing second there and Gex won twice at Pau.
They have all been a lot of fun.
The group of H's seem equally as exciting, with Herbier and Home Public winning over here and Haut Morvan winning on his second ever start at Pau in January.
In addition to thsoe which are already at Stockton Hall, the others could come over here in the future to race which is very exciting for us all.
Haut Mouvan as a foal
