Rouget: 'It's My Premiere Passion to Buy Yearlings, Maybe More Than to Train Horses'

Always leave them wanting more, they say. In the case of Ace Impact (Fr) (Cracksman {GB}) there is little doubt that racing fans would have thrown wide their arms in joy had he stayed in training next year. 

Those closer to the business end of the stallion market will appreciate the fine line that had to be walked by Kamel Chehboub and his daughter Pauline in making their decision either to continue the racing career of the unbeaten colt they share with Serge Stempniak, or hasten his departure to their brand new stallion operation at Haras de Beaumont. In the end, heads trumped hearts, and while Ace Impact's retirement is racing's loss, it is also very much French breeding's gain.

The man who had the most right to feel aggrieved at Thursday's confirmation of the end of Ace Impact's racing career is Jean-Claude Rouget, who first set eyes on him as a yearling at Arqana two summers ago, and has delivered a masterclass, from Cagnes-sur-Mer to the Bois de Boulogne, in how to train a top-class racehorse. Rouget, though, understands the demands of both sides of the industry all too well, and is magnanimous in regard to the decision that has been taken to stand Ace Impact in Normandy, where the trainer himself was born 70 years ago. 

“I was very pleased to sell the share [in Ace Impact] to Kamel because he is very audacious and he is taking a lot of risk, and in France we need people like that,” Rouget says in a pause between recruiting the next batch of yearlings at Tattersalls.

“I was very pleased that the horse was going to stay in France at stud. It's a wonderful opportunity for the breeders. I am not a breeder myself but I think about the French breeders always going to England and Ireland every year, and we need a better stallion roster than we have. We had Siyouni and Wootton Bassett but Siyouni is getting old and Wootton Bassett has left, so we need some young horses.

“I hope he will become a good stallion, but nobody knows. A new book will open.”

The old book, let's call it the first in the series, was more novella than novel, but it was epic all the same. All we can do now is watch scenes from the story of the season on replay, and we are not alone in so doing.

Last year he was just asking me to give him time.

“What I did the other night as I was trying to get to sleep was to review Ace Impact's six races in fifteen minutes,” says Rouget, as much in awe of the horse as the rest of us.

“It was very interesting. He always had quality. Last year he was just asking me to give him time. He had very bad skin in the summer, which is not usual, so I decided to wait until the winter to start with him.”

Lucky for Ace Impact that he was bought – at €75,000 – by a trainer who has been around long enough to listen when a horse finds his own method of communication. Rouget is of course no stranger to success. In 1991, he set a French record with his 178 wins for the season, but quality has long surpassed quantity.

Three years after that, Millkom (GB) was his breakthrough star, from little heard-of provincial tracks to the big city, winning the Prix Jean Prat and Grand Prix de Paris and becoming the trainer's first runner in the Arc. It took another quarter of a century for Rouget to win that race, but in the last few seasons his impression on the Arc has been emphatic, with victory for Sottsass (Fr) in 2020 followed this year by Ace Impact. In the interim he had a second and fourth with Vadeni (Fr) and Al Hakeem (GB).

It is the Prix du Jockey Club which Rouget can these days just about call his own, however. Since his first win in the Classic with Le Havre (Ire) in 2009 – the year in which he became champion trainer for the first time, having also won the Poule d'Essai des Pouliches and Prix de Diane with Elusive Wave (Ire) and Stacelita (Fr) – he has now won it six times. Ace Impact's track-record-breaking success in this year's Jockey Club may well go down as one of the most visually impressive of all time. He broke the hearts of supporters of Big Rock (Ire) as he sped past, gathering a head of steam as if propelled by slingshot from the back of the pack. This was the first time the wider racing world outside France had woken up to the colt's extraordinary talents, but Rouget was already firmly of the opinion that he had a good 'un on his hands. 

Casting his mind back to January 26 and Cagnes-sur-Mer, he says, “We gave him a nice first race and he showed good acceleration. At that time it wasn't the same as we saw later in the year, but it was enough to win.

“After that we gave him two months because I knew we had to continue to give him time, expecting a good spring and summer. In Bordeaux he won well, he didn't have the best trip on the outside and he was pulling a bit, but he won easily. After that we started the process to make him into a Group 1 winner.”

He adds, “We passed by Chantilly to show him the track. In the Prix de Suresnes he was blocked inside but again he won very easily and that was the confirmation that he was a very good horse.”

Rouget, whose training career began in Pau in south-west France, has in recent years increased his satellite stable in Deauville. But he sensibly still steers the easiest route possible to the metropolitan tracks if he can. Of the decision to start Ace Impact at the seaside in the south of France, he says, “We had to choose a path: to run at two a couple of times or to start in March. To me, it's very difficult to start in March and to have a Group 1 horse. I did it with Valyra and she won the Diane two months later, but it is very rare. 

“I prefer to give them experience and, to me, Cagnes-sur-Mer is a very good track. I used to send 30 or 40 horses every winter. I did the same with Raabihah. She should have won the Diane for me. She was a close fourth, and after [Cagnes] she won [a Listed race] in Longchamp. I consider running in January to be the same as running in November. I don't push my horses to start. First time out I want there to be no risk.”

He continues, “Deauville is very interesting but I like Pau, I prefer to have the yearlings there, because Deauville is racetrack. Pau is a special training centre beside the racetrack.

“I think it is better for them to start in the provinces where racing is less strong at the beginning and you can give them one or two races to build their confidence. After that you can go to Deauville to try to win a Listed race. I prefer that route to starting in Longchamp or Deauville with a knife in their teeth.”

Ace Impact brought his own weapon to his tussles at Chantilly, Deauville and Longchamp in his killer turn of foot. He retires as the European champion three-year-old of 2023, having blazed, comet-like, through a career which spanned a little over eight months. 

He had been under the tutelage of Rouget and his team since the August of 2021, however. By then, his half-brother Alessandro (Fr) (Australia {GB}) had been second on three starts for Rouget, including in the Prix du Suquet on debut, the same race won by his sibling two years later on his own first visit to the races. 

I am very happy to choose my horses myself and to train them,
and to understand why I did well or why I did badly.

Rouget, then, was not entirely unfamiliar with the offspring of Absolutly Me (Fr) (Anabaa Blue {GB}). The 14-year-old mare is owned by German breeder Waltraut Spanner and resides at Barbara Moser's Haras du Long Champ – about as prophetic a birthplace for a future Arc winner as there could be.

Alessandro went on to win three races and finish second in a Listed contest, while his younger brother moved between Pau and Deauville, his trainer just biding his time.

Recalling his impression of Ace Impact at the yearling sales, Rouget says, “It was his conformation. He was very pleasing to watch, and his dam was doing well.”

Anyone who has seen the trainer in action at the sales will know that watching is what he does best. A regular presence ringside, he selects his own horses, and is analytical while accepting the blame if things don't go to plan. Such a lesson in scrutiny would be well learned by prospective bloodstock agents.

“It's my premiere passion to buy yearlings, maybe more than to train horses,” he says. “I am very happy to choose my horses myself and to train them, and to understand why I did well or why I did badly. Year after year I watch what I bought and ask myself, 'why is this one no good?' It's very interesting.”

Rouget was among the buyers last week at Tattersalls, and he will certainly feature prominently at Arqana this week, a sale which is a home from home for him in Deauville. It will be hard to find one to match Ace Impact, but the trainer will not be deterred from trying to unearth a fledgling racehorse with similar qualities.

“He has a tremendous stride,” Rouget says in attempting to pinpoint what set his newly retired star apart. “The same acceleration with a horse who doesn't move as well as he does is less effective. But his allows him to go very fast; he is covering a lot of ground, with an engine, and as the year went on he became more and more impressive.”

While he awaits the first offspring of Ace Impact at the sales, Rouget this year has had a chance to peruse yearlings by his first Arc winner, another home-grown French star, Sottsass. 

“I try to stay neutral but I have to accept that his horses walk well and seem, like him, to have good minds,” he says. “I have bought a few and Peter Brant will send me a few that he has bred. We will try to help Sottsass to become a good stallion.”

In the meantime, Ace Impact has helped his trainer to become champion for the second year running, having snatched the title back from his arch rival Andre Fabre last year. Since Rouget's first championship in 2009, it has passed to and fro between the pair, with Rouget's impending coronation marking his fifth time at the top of the table. 

He says, “There has been a challenge between Andre Fabre and me for a long time, especially in the last four or five years. Before, he was always in front, but I beat him in 2009, and 2016 was for me the best year with plenty of good horses. 

“For me, when I was a young trainer in Pau I couldn't even imagine that. I am very proud of it. Step by step we have built up the stable over 45 years.”

Step by step, too, he built the career of the best racehorse we have seen in Europe this year, one which was shrewdly not started too early, but which finished all too soon. It was brief, he was brilliant, and boy did he make an impact.