Purebred ArAbiAn

The biG inTerVieW The French Purebred ArAbiAn #36 - SePTembre 2016 - 15
>> VAL bunTinG
the discOVery Of french hOrses
« When I came across Purebred Arabians of French origin for the first time, I was not surprised by
their appearance. They resembled horses from the old Crabbet stock. The appearance of the
spectacular look that we consider to be the Arab type is relatively recent. All in all, WAHO has
never really tried to exclude the French stud-book, which is ancient and well up held. There is
however a rumour on this subject. In the 1980’s, the English knew of the existence of French
purebred Arabian racing? In the mid-1980s, the first French horses came to run at Kempton Park.
I remember the victory of the great cherifa (Cheri Bibi). In 1988 dormane (Manganate) came over.
I had a horse in the race, who finished third to Jean-Marc de Watrigant’s horse. When I saw
Dormane, I understood that I needed to focus on French horses. I have a lot of respect for these
horses and their history. There were many good trainers in Great Britain, but the French had the
advantage thanks to the depth of their breeding, and also an excellent understanding and
knowledge of their bloodlines.. »
a passiOn fOr pedigrees
« I have always been very interested in pedigrees. It wasn’t easy back at that time. So I got hold of
some examples of the French Stud Book, including some very old editions, which I studied.
Technology was a lot less developed, and information was less widely available and it took a lot of
time to acquaint myself with this subject. When I arrived in France, I studied it keenly and learned
what I had wanted to. My first buy was akie croix noire (Tidjani), who is now owned by Al Shahania.
She is notably found in the pedigree of the Gr.I winners arc de ciel (Djendel), asraa min albarq
(Amer), gazwan (Amer) and areej (Amer). I then bought nerva du cassou (Baroud III), the dam of
nizam (Amer) and her daughter danie du cassou (Dahr), dam of dahess (Amer). They were small
but solid. The presence of Dahr did not really sway me. I was mostly keen on the quality of their
family. »
amer, a hOrse apart
« I worked for fourteen years in Qatar. At the time it was unusual there to see a woman training
horses, or driving a car… But it went well. People were very understanding. After a while, the
structure became too big, and needed to be divided into different roles. I took over the breeding
side. Alban de Mieulle was recruited to take over the training. amer (Wafi) is without doubt the
best horse I have trained, with djelmila (Manganate) and djebbel (Djelfor), who were very good
but also very complicated. Amer’s best distance was the mile. I trained him in 1989 and 1990. He
won four races and was second once in Qatar, for horses bred in Qatar. From 1991 to 1996, he
couldn’t run for administrative reasons. In 1996, we sent him to Great Britain, where he ran although
he was already 12 years old. Even if he didn’t have much experience, he always wanted to run. We
wanted above all to make him a stallion, so we tried to only run him in races where he had a winning
chance. I did not, for example, take the risk of running him in France.
TO be cOnTinued >>