13 minute read
Christopher Head et al
Head to the top
Trainer Christopher Head and the Garcon family of Haras de l’Hotellerie chat to Jocelyn de Moubray about the remarkable filly Blue Rose Cen
BLUE ROSE CEN’s brilliant victory in the Prix de Diane in June was a significant triumph in its own right as with this win the daughter of Churchill joined a trio of outstanding champions – Allez France, Zarkava and Divine Proprtions. They are the only four fillies to win the Prix Marcel Boussac at two, and then go on to success in the Poule d’Esaai des Pouliches and Prix de Diane at three.
For those closely involved with the Blue Rose Cen this was a win which may mark the beginning of a long-term change in French and European racing and breeding.
Her young trainer Christopher Head, still in only his fifth season, has this year established himself amongst the country’s leaders.
The filly’s owner and breeder Leopoldo Fernandez Pujais of Yeguada Centurion bought his first thoroughbreds in 2019. He has succeeded in raising and racing a champion from the first generation of his project to build an operation of international significance in France.
Blue Rose Cen was raised at Jean Pierre and Guillaume Garcon family’s farm Haras de l’Hotellerie, and they, along with jockey Aurelien Lemaitre, have all been involved with top-class horses before, but a Classic winner of the stature of Blue Rose Cen would constitute a pinnacle for anyone’s racing career.
“Perhaps,” says Head, “in the future we will look back at this season and see it as the moment when the cycle changed, and France was once again on the way to becoming a true leader in international racing and breeding.”
Blue Rose Cen made her debut as a two-year-old over 6f at the beginning of May and finished sixth beaten nearly 10l.
“She was part of the first group of two-year-olds to work fast,” Head remembers, “and showed plenty of speed from the beginning. I don’t mind getting beaten if it is part of a horse’s apprenticeship and Blue Rose Cen has never stopped improving since.
“She is still a small filly, but she has grown a lot between two and three and has continued to develop and put on muscle.
“She has always been sound and healthy, she has never had to suffer and she has been able to cope with everything we have asked of her.
“Of course, her win in the Diane was her best performance to date. It is extraordinary to achieve something only matched by great champions and it was a great day for her, for me, for Leopoldo Pujais and everyone who works at the stable.
“Leopoldo is new to racing, but has been breeding horses for many years and he is surrounded by people who keep him well informed. He realised the importance of Blue Rose Cen’s win and was very thrilled by it.”
Jean Pierre Garcon was among the team members who gathered around Blue Rose Cen after the Diane.
“It was, of course, quite something,” he agrees. ‘Winning a Classic race and the Prix de Diane would mean a great deal to any breeder and we were lucky to be given the chance to raise such a filly. Perhaps I should consider retiring on a high after this victory!”
Garcon runs Haras de l’Hotellerie together with his wife Isabella and their son Guillaume, and is happy to continue together.
“We were introduced to Leopoldo Pujais by the Spanish agent Francisco Bernal and have kept 30 mares for him on the farm and presented his yearlings at the sales in Deauville, Newmarket and BadenBaden,” Garcon explains.
PUJAIS has purchased Haras de Nonant Le Pin and the new Haras de Centurion and will soon be ready to take care of the 60 mares belonging to Yeguada Centurion.
“We still have 15 mares with us at Hotellerie,” Garcon says, “but all of Monsieur’s Pujais mares will soon be on his stud although we will continue to be involved and to present his yearlings at the sales.
“The current policy is to sell half of the yearlings, and as there are 40 this year, the 20 will be offered at the Arqana August Sale and October, and at the September Sale at Baden-Baden.
“The aim is to continue to sell some of the best as you have to sell good horses if you want to continue for the long term.”
Yeguada Centurion’s sales have included the twoyear-old Group winner Ramatuelle, a daughter of Justify sold by Hotellerie for €100,000 at last year’s August Sale, as well as one of the leading three-yearold hurdlers in France, the Motivator colt Jigme. He was sold at the Deauville October Sale for €90,000 to a syndicate put together by Garcon.
Jigme is bred on the same cross as Treve – by Motivator out of a mare by Anabaa – and his dam is a half-sister to Sinndar.
“We bought him together with a group of our clients and are in the process of syndicating him again as a stallion and he will stand at the Haras de Hoguenet in 2024 after competing in the top races for his generation at Auteuil this autumn,” updates Garcon.
Hotellerie has grown into a large operation and there are currently 110 mares based on the farm’s 615 acres split evenly between Flat and jumping mares.
“We have shares in around 40 of these mares,” Garcon adds. “There is a very strong market for jumping-bred horses in France these days and there is a huge amount of private trade with British and Irish agents always on the look out for young stock.
“It is attractive for breeders as, even if good jumping mares are becoming expensive, France’s leading jumping stallion Doctor Dino stands at only €20,000 and so not at the same level as the Flat sires.”
Hotellerie’s Arqana August draft includes four fillies and a colt belonging to Yeguada Centurion – the fillies are by Zarak, Justify, Maximum Security and Ten Sovereigns, and the colt is a son of a No Nay Never.
“We are offering one of Yeguada Centurion’s yearlings at Baden-Baden, too,” Garcon says. “Last year we sold a Sea The Stars filly for Centurion out of the Monsun mare Imagery and we will have a draft of six for BBAG September. It is a sale we like.”
The partnership with Yeguada Centurion has increased the profile of the Haras de l’Hotellerie and has given the farm the chance to raise horses of the quality of Blue Rose Cen, Ramatuelle and Wise Girl, the filly who made the running in the Diane and finished an excellent fourth, as well as the future stallion Jigme.
However, Garcon is still surprised by Blue Rose Cen.
“It has to be said when she was a yearling Blue Rose Cen was just another horse like all the others, but then she was lucky enough to go to a brilliant trainer,” he concludes.
“I think Christopher is a genius and I am sure he is going to be a top trainer for years to come. I just hope he will still have room for our horses in the future!”.
“Christopher is determined to do things his own way, to try out every new innovation and then he is ready to take on challenges and when he decides to run it is because he believes he will win.”
Like Hotellerie, Head’s career was put under a spotlight when he was introduced to Pujais and it seems they shared a vision of trying to do things differently from the beginning.
Pujais is Cuban by birth and left the island as a young teenager when he and his family moved to the US. Pujais completed his studies, joined the army and saw service in Vietnam returning as a captain.
He pursued a business career with the multi-national companies Proctor and Gamble, and then Johnson and Johnson for whom he moved to Spain in the 1980s.
Since then Pujais has diversified into many other sectors, including telecommunications and the company Jazztel, which was sold to Orange in 2014.
Pujais’ business flair gave him the means to start breeding horses. In the 1990s he founded the Centurion farm in El Espinar, Segovia, north-west of Madrid, to breed and raise Spanish purebreds on 2,500 acres with the aim of competing in the best international dressage competitions.
In 2019, Pujais began to invest in thoroughbreds buying a couple of yearlings at the Arqana August Sale and then spending over $3 million at Keeneland November. He continuing buying at the European breeding stock sales and now has 60 fillies and mares.
It was at this time that Head was introduced to Pujais by one of his cousins.
“When we first met I had just started training,” Head remembers, “and he promised to send me a horse.
“Luckily for me the horse was Sibila Spain. She was a filly with real heart who did everything we asked her.”
Sibila Spain was a Frankel filly and one of Yeguada Centurion’s Arqana purchases.
She made a spectacular winning debut as a three-year-old making all the running to win by 9l at Chantilly and then went on to be a close-up fourth in the Prix de Diane and win a Group 2 as a four-year-old.
As a member of the Head family and the son of Freddie, one of France’s greatest jockeys and a leading trainer, racing was, of course, always part of Head Jnr’s life.
He spent his childhood in Paris and completed his studies in computers, but, as soon as this was done, he returned to Chantilly to work in his father’s stable.
“I worked at every post in the stable,” he says. “I wanted to learn and you never know where problems may arise in the future. My father was a wonderful team leader. We had some great days, of course, but after the disappointments he was always able to bring us together and motivate everybody again. I learnt everything from him.”
HEAD became one of the fifth generation of his family to train in Chantilly after seven years working for his father and two years with his aunt Christiane Head. He also spent a few months with Julio Canani in California and leading French jumps trainer Guillaume Macaire.
“From the beginning my plan was to try to change things,” Head recounts. “I wanted to try all of the new technology available. Our horses work with GPS so I know exactly the speed they are going.
“We measure their cardiovascular recovery and I analyse their races with the help of the sectional times provided by France Galop. I have always loved data and am always looking for ways to use data to help us.”
He denies the rumours that he spent a lot of time playing computer games in his youth, saying, “When you are interested by computers you are quickly labeled as a nerd!”
The other aspect of the Head method, in which he was supported from the beginning by Yeguada Centurion and his other owners, was to try to make French racing more selective and to be prepared to make the running when this was necessary to ensure races run at a good pace from start to finish.
“Not every horse is able to race from the front,” he says, “but truly run races allow the best horses to shine, and particularly if they are prepared to take advantage of select races.
“It is obviously a help in this project to have a jockey as good as Aurelien Lemaitre. We started together in my father’s stables – we never imagined we would end up working together with such top horses.”
Head’s horses often race from the front and the way he is changing French racing by doing so was well illustrated by the two Chantilly Classic races.
Ace Impact set a new race record of 2m2.63s in the Prix du Jockey-Club (G1) after Head’s runner Big Rock maintained a strong early pace until close to the post.
Yeguada Centurion’s son of Rock Of Gibraltar had won his first four starts for the Head stable, making the running each time and his official rating went from 82 to 116 in the space of three months.
Big Rock is being prepared to drop back in trip for the mile Prix Jacques Le Marois (G1) at Deauville.
Head’s immediate plans revolve around the Group 1 targets for his current stars Blue Rose Cen, Big Rock and Ramatuelle.
For the future his ambition is, he says, to become a trainer like Carlos Laffon Parias, who has always had top-class horses in his yard year after year.
“This year we have had around 50 horses in training, but there is some rotation.
“Yeguada Centurion’s two-year-olds have only just come in and some others have left the yard to be rested or moved on in order to make room,” Head explains.
“I do not want to grow too quickly, but I have bought a new stable this summer and we shall see where we are at the end of the year.
“I already have a great group of owners and am just starting to attract some owner-breeders, which is perhaps the best way to get hold of horses with potential to go to the top.”
Head’s life has changed a great deal over the last two years since Sibila Spain came on the scene. He is currently in third place in the French trainers’ table behind only Andre Fabré and Jean-Claude Rouget.
He has won with 31 per cent of his runners and has taken more Group and Listed races than any other trainer this year in France. He has also become a father and his daughter Elizabeth Head has just turned one.
Along with everybody watching from the outside Head himself admits to a degree of surprise.
“Sometimes,” he says, “I feel as if I am just watching these fabulous horses racing and winning all on their own!”
One thing which is beyond any doubt is that Head’s own training project, alongside the racing and breeding programme of Yeguada Centurion and Leopoldo Pujais, have both made a spectacular start.
Hotellerie’s Arqana August draft 2023
26 c. Persian King-Private Success (Intello)
224 f. Zarak-Getback Time (Gilded Time)
240 f. Ten Sovereigns-Haziyna (Halling)
242 f. Justify-Hollywood Glory (Maclean’s Music)
246 f. Maximum Security-Idle Hour (Malibu Moon)
265 c. No Nay Never-La Berma (Lawman)
285 f. Siyouni-Malevra (Le Havre)
380 c. Toronado-Whippa D’Or (Whipper)
390 c. Kodiac-Ali Alexandra (Areion)
408 f. Kendargent-Canouville (Air Chief Marshal)
418 c. Mehmas-Dawilia (Dawn Approach)
461 c. Romanised-Kazeema (Al Kazeem)
477 c. Ten Sovereigns-Mambo Paradise (Makfi)
478 f. City Light-Maraza (Paco Boy)
Hotellerie’s BBAG September draft 2023
26 f. Le Havre-Siuna (Exceed And Excel)
72 c. Wootton Bassett-Shadan (Orpen)
109 f. The Grey Gatsby-Ivola (Scalo)
118 f. Shalaa-Loyal Heroine (Teofilo)
222 f. Almanzor-La Bella Espagnola (Teofilo)
