It’s not all down to luck

Classic-winning breeder Julie Mestrallet has made the most of the opportunities that have come her way, writes Jocelyn de Moubray

WHATEVER LIES in the future for Julie Mestrallet, her family and her breeding operation at the Haras de l’Aumônerie, the year 2021 will always stand out as one of significant achievements.

In March, Mestrallet gave birth to twin boys Henri and Baptiste, and then only a few weeks later she and her young daughter Agathe Cousin Mestrallet and her mother Francine Mestrallet became Classic breeders when Coeursamba, who they bred together, flew home to win the Group 1 Poule d’Essai des Pouliches at ParisLongchamp for trainer Jean-Claude Rouget and jockey Christian Demuro, despite being a 66-1 outsider.

Her boys and Coeursamba share the same birthday on March 26, but this is only one of a series of coincidences and chance encounters, which could lead those so inclined to believe in such things, that Coeursamba was always destined to be the horse who put l’Aumônerie on the map.

If this is what the fates had prepared then they could not have chosen someone better prepared to seize the opportunity right at the beginning of her career as a thoroughbred breeder.

The path which was to lead to Coeursamba began when Mestrallet was already on her second career and working as an assistant at the Clinique Stockwell in Falaise, an equine veterinary clinic run by Dr Christopher Stockwell.

Her mother Francine Mestrallet was a breeder of ponies on the family’s farm the Haras de l’Aumônerie, not far from Pont l’Eveque in Normandy. From a young age Julie had ridden and competed in show jumping events and from the ages of 14 to 15 she was part of the French Junior team.

“I had,” she remembers, “an extraordinary little pony and together we competed all over France and travelled to Belgium and Germany as well. After the junior level the cost of buying the right horses became prohibitive and so from the age of 16 I started working as a groom for different professional riders.

“I spent three years working for Christian Hermon, I went to Switzerland for a year and finally ended up with the Olympic champion Alexandra Ledermann. After six years I had enough and said to myself that I was finished with horses.”

The fates had, of course, chosen a different route and through an introduction Mestrallet started working as an assistant at the Clinique, no longer riding horses for a living but instead learning how to care for them.

“I stayed seven years at Stockwell,” she says. “I was present and assisted at all types of interventions and surgeries, as well as learning about the paperwork and accounting side of the equine business. The clinic only works with horses and during my time its thoroughbred clients included Haras du Quesnay and many other breeders such as the Bader family and the Haras du Vieux Pont.”

Mestrallet used to go to Le Quesnay to take blood samples and its was these visits which introduced her to Anabaa and Bering, at the time the stud’s two star stallions, as well as the success of the Head family’s breeding operation.

When she took over at Haras de l’Aumônerie, Julie Mestrallet swapped from breeding ponies to breeding thoroughbreds, despite having little background in the industry

In 2011, Mestrallet decided to take over her mother’s farm and despite knowing next to nobody in the thoroughbred business decided to breed racehorses and not ponies.

Before starting her new project she spent six months working for the trainer Jennifer Bidgood, who was based at the Haras de Bouquetot, now owned by Al Shaqab, which is only a few kilometers from her family’s farm.

“It was an unusual setup then,” Mestrallet says. “There was no training track and we used to canter the horses in the paddocks. One day I was sent with two runners to Niort which is a small track in the west of France near La Rochelle.

“One of our horses was running in the claimer and so I had a look at the others in the race and they included Marechale, a four-year-old daughter of Anabaa out of a Bering mare, bred by Alec and Madam Alec Head, who was in for a €5,000 claiming price.

“I had a look at her and despite the fact she failed, yet again, to win and finished only fifth I gave my phone number to her trainer Philip Le Gal and told him that I couldn’t afford to pay €5,000, but I was interested in the filly.

“About a month later Marechale ran again finishing last at an even smaller track and Le Gal called to say that he had enough and couldn’t put up with the filly any longer. He told me that if I wanted I could have her for €2,500 and he would deliver her to the farm as he had a runner nearby at Clairefontaine.”

THE DEAL was done and Marechale was on her way to l’Aumônerie. There was the small question of the €2,500 asking price now due, but Julie’s mother agreed to lend her the money and was there to see the fouryear-old being unloaded.

“My mother was not initially very impressed and it was lucky that I didn’t know my husband Guillaume Cousin at the time as he would have been furious if he had seen her coming off the box!”

Guillaume Cousin has worked for Arqana since the beginning and before that for Agençe Francaise. Throughout most of that time not only has he been to every small farm in the country to inspect yearlings, but he has also stood next to the ring on the auctioneers’ left, almost without a break.

The couple met on the farm as the fi rst boarder who arrived in 2012 happened to have been bred by Cousin and he came to look at the mare.

“Guillaume and I don’t look at horses in quite the same way,” Mestrallet explains. “I love having his advice and listening to his opinions, but sometimes in breeding I think you need to follow your own instinct.”

Marechale lost her pregnancy the fi rst year she was covered, but Mestrallet then won a season to Alexandros, a son of Kingmambo who stood at the Haras de Logis, in a lottery organised by the French breeders’ association and in 2013 she gave birth to a fi lly foal, who was presented at the Arqana December Sale.

“She was a lovely foal,” Mestrallet remembers. “I had bills of €12,000 to pay and so I made that her reserve and led her up to the ring myself.

“As the bidding went over that fi gure I kept thinking that’s another ten metres of fencing paid for! In the end she made €26,000.”

The run of good luck continued as Mestrallet then won a season to Mr Sidney, with whom Marechale bred Lady Sydney. She retired as a Listed-placed winner of seven races with 31 placing and some €435,000 in prize-money and €36,000 in breeders’ premiums,

The lottery success continued and Mestrallet won a season to Jukebox Jury. She bred O’Juke, the winner of the Group 3 St Leger Italiano in 2018, from her other mare O’Keefe, a daughter of Peintre Celebre.

In 2017, Mestrallet decided to send Marechale to The Wow Signal, contrary to the advice of almost everybody whose opinion she asked.

“I had watched the son of Starspangledbanner win the Prix Morny and had always loved him,” she explains.

The Wow Signal proved to be almost infertile and died prematurely after producing only a total of 11 named foals, one of which was out of Marechale.

The filly foal went to the sales and was sold to the Haras d’Haspel for €24,000.

“I don’t have the space to keep my foals as yearlings,” Mestrallet says, “but always loved the filly. When she came up to the sale as a yearling I put together a syndicate with friends and the trainer Ludovic Gadbin, we were the underbidders on her to JeanClaude Rouget, who bought her for €40,000.

“With hindsight it was just as well we didn’t get her as I am sure she wouldn’t have had the same career. Who other than Monsieur Rouget would have dared run her in the Pouliches?”

Coeursamba was an excellent two-yearold winning at Saint-Cloud and being placed in Group races at ParisLongchamp and Deauville. She was sold by her original owner Jean Louis Tepper to Abdulla Al Attiyah for €400,000 at the Arqana Arc Sale and went on to finish fifth in the Group 1 Prix Marcel Boussac the following day.

ONLY THIRD on her seasonal reappearance at ParisLongchamp this year Rouget decided to let Coeursamba take her chance in the Classic.

She responded by travelling sweetly throughout the race and beating the 1,000 Guineas winner Mother Earth comfortably by three-quarters of a length.

After running her race during the preliminaries of the Prix de Diane, Coeursamba was stirred up in the paddock and showed little, she has changed hands again and is now owned by Katsumi Yoshida of Japan’s Northern Farm remaining with Rouget.

For Mestrallet the Coeursamba story is far from over as before Coeursamba had revealed her class the breeder had bought back the Alexandros half-sister, who is called Comme Une Grande.

She had her first foal this year, a colt by the Scat Daddy sire Seahenge. Marechale also has a colt foal by Starspangledbanner, a close relation to Coeursamba.

“In principle and certainly at this stage the plan is to offer him at the Arqana December Sale,” Mestrallet confirms. “Marechale also has a two-year-old Olympic Glory colt, who is in training with Gianluca Bietolini in Maisons Laffitte.”

Marechale has changed the destiny of those involved with her, which would have been impossible to predict at the outset.

She was an ordinary racehorse, who after finishing second on her debut in Deauville for the Head family, ran a further 15 times without ever finishing closer than fourth.

Her full-sister Maxwell was a Listed winner but otherwise there was little of interest in her pedigree for several generations, even if her fifth dam Fine Pearl was France’s three-yearold champion in 1966.

The Haras de l’Aumônerie is now a Classic breeder and will present eight yearlings at the Arqana August Sale and V2, and a further 15 in October. For the select part of the sale it has a Siyouni filly out of a half-sister to Zarkava, as well as colts by Al Kazeem and Holy Roman Emperor.

The farm keeps 15 mares all the year round for clients as well as its own headed by Marechale, her daughter Comme Une Grande and the Group producer O’Keefe.

In addition to the horses and her children Mestrallet also works for the insurance group Merkel, whose French equine branch is close to the stud. Mestrallet is Merkel’s expert on veterinary expenses and also looks after a few clients’ insurance needs.

“Marechale has,” Mestrallet concludes, “paid for everything on the farm. I gave our daughter Agathe 10 per cent of the foals and she I won’t have to buy her a car when she turns 18 as she already has enough on her France Galop account, even if in the future she will have to share with her brothers!”