Classic-Winning Trainer Pascal Bary Retires

Multiple Classic-winning trainer Pascal Bary has announced his retirement after 44 years in the French training ranks.

The Chantilly trainer saddled the winner of the Prix du Jockey Club on six occasions, starting with Celtic Arms (Fr) in 1994 and most recently with Study Of Man (Ire) in 2018.

Over the years, Bary, 71, has been associated with a stream of great equine names, most notably for the Niarchos family, for whom he won two further Jockey Clubs with the half-brothers Dream Well (Fr) and Sulamani (Ire), and the Prix de Diane with Divine Proportions and Six Perfections (Fr). The latter was also one of three Breeders' Cup winners for the trainer when landing the Mile in 2003, the year after he took the same race, for the same owner-breeder, with Domedriver (Ire). 

Further foreign victories included two successful raids on Newmarket with Natagora (Fr), who won the G1 Cheveley Park Stakes before going on to glory in the following year's 1,000 Guineas. That was not his sole Classic win outside his native France as Bary also won the Irish Derby with Dream Well, and he is the only French trainer to have won the Dubai World Cup, with Gloria De Campeao (Brz) in 2010.

Bary told Jour de Galop that he had been preparing for his retirement since the 2023 Grand Prix de Paris victory of Feed The Flame (GB). The son of Kingman (GB), who has recently retired to Haras de la Hetraie, was his final Group 1 winner. 

“I was lucky to have a fabulous job, with magnificent horses that I loved and exceptional people that I would never have met in other environments,” he said. “I am retiring in very good spirits…Everything changes and all generations think that things were better before, but I refuse to think that way. I did not choose to retire to avoid the challenges of change. It is just the right time to do something else after having practiced a profession, we must not forget, which requires commitment seven days a week and 24 hours a day.”