Moreau Happy to Stand Up to the Big Guys

His conversation still retains a charming French inflection, all these years later, but when Xavier Moreau first crossed the water his English was really quite rudimentary. And he remembers going into a men's clothing store in Houston and being baffled by the gigantic measurements on every single garment.

An assistant wandered over. “May I help you, sir?”

Moreau gesticulated. “I can't find anything my size,” he said.

As he recalls, the guy “was looking at me like I had come down from the moon.”

“Well, no, you won't find anything to fit you here. This store is for bigger people.”

Moreau began to feel slighted. Even now, in his 60s, you can tell that he was formerly an expert show rider rather than a little Flat jockey. Was this some weird condescension toward the French?

“Sir, this store is called Big and Tall.”

In laughing at the memory, however, Moreau is entitled to find a double pertinence to his small offering at Keeneland next week. For one thing, purely in terms of their build, he could aptly rebrand his consignment as just that: Big and Tall. Far more importantly, however, he offers a perfect example of how a marketplace dominated by industrial consignments also allows the “little guy” to stand tall; to punch far above weight, indeed, with a horsemanship that is absolutely commensurate.

It was at this sale in 2009, for instance, that Moreau went into the offices by the back ring, where the staff had adjusted to the tempo of the second week. Moreau and some friends had pinhooked a Bernstein weanling out of the same ring in the final session of the November Sale, for $55,000, and now brought him back as Hip 1544.

“Excuse me,” he said. “But I have this horse here with a lot of action.”

Someone raised an eyebrow. “Like, how much action?”

“Like, 29 scopes.”

Suddenly he had their attention.

“It's ridiculous,” he told them. “The vets have been standing in line. I've told them it's got to stop, it's getting out of hand. One of the vets should put the scope in, and then everyone can look.”

It was unheard of, that deep in the sale. Sure enough, the colt made $475,000. There was only one regret. Moreau had also wanted to buy the dam the previous November, but the groom cautioned him that the colt had been weaned early because she was such a mean mother; and that she had aborted. Moreau pictured the reaction of his (then) wife, and ruefully decided against. That enabled Carrie and Craig Brogden of Machmer Hall to pick her up for just $4,500. After seeing her son sell so well, they had an obvious cover the following spring. And the resulting filly turned out to be none other than Tepin (Bernstein).

Tepin | Sarah Andrew

“Mine was a gorgeous colt,” Moreau recalled. “He actually ran in the [GI] Belmont S., and was twice graded stakes-paced. Unfortunately he had pneumonia, he was in a clinic for a month, and never really showed what he was capable of.”

But horses Moreau has bred and/or raised have not just looked the part. When he was based in Ocala, he bred triple Grade I winner Bushfire (Louis Quatorze) from a $35,000 mare; and millionaire Wildcat Red (D'wildcat) from one that cost even less. Nowadays, at the same Nicholasville farm where Barbaro (Dynaformer) was foaled–he's amazed to see fans still making a Springmint pilgrimage every spring–Moreau this year himself had an exciting ride all the way to the GI Kentucky Derby.

Co-bred with White Bloodstock LLC, Smile Happy (Runhappy) won the GII Kentucky Jockey Club S. last year before chasing home Epicenter (Not This Time) and Zandon (Upstart) respectively in the GII Risen Star S. and GI Blue Grass S. Moreau went to see Kenny McPeek three days before the Derby and the trainer told him: “I'm going to make you a famous breeder!” But he had always been skeptical about the distance, and the colt has yet to resurface after running eighth at Churchill. Sadly, moreover, the unforgiving realities of the game had long since intervened.

Smile Happy's dam Pleasant Smile, even at $57,000, was as expensive a mare as Moreau has ever bought: a daughter of Pleasant Tap from Adena Springs, in foal to Awesome Again. The resulting filly was picked out for the Select Sale at Saratoga, but didn't show well after getting hurt in the lorry. She still brought $100,000, while her next filly raised $130,000 though by the cooling Bodemeister. And Smile Happy, foaled two stalls down from the one where Barbaro was born, made more again.

“People said that $175,000 was a lot of money for a horse that basically had no page,” Moreau recalls. “But he was a beautiful colt, very sure of himself. I worked with show horses for many years and try to teach my Thoroughbreds to stand a bit like that: 'Look at me, I'm tough.'”

Smile Happy | Coady

Tragically, there could be no dividend for Moreau after Smile Happy upgraded the pedigree. “The mare aborted one night the previous December,” Moreau says. “It was very hard for her: she broke a hip, she was a big heavy mare and couldn't get up. It was a sad story. But things always happen like that. I lost the mother of Bushfire right after she'd won the Florida Oaks.”

Moreau, as just indicated, entered the Thoroughbred world via a somewhat unusual avenue. His family had raised a mixture of half-breds, jumpers and Arabians in the South of France, albeit they did actually stand a son of Native Dancer for a time. They emigrated to the U.S. in 1980, but things did not work out: a valuable stallion prospect died, the insurers wouldn't pay up, there was trouble with partners. Worst of all, Moreau's sister was killed in an automobile accident.

Moreau returned to France, where he was fast-tracked as a precocious judge of show horses. Soon he was judging national championships all round the world, while also experimenting as a bloodstock agent. He bought Arabian horses for the Maktoums and other clients in the Middle East, notably Sheikh Abdullah al-Thani, and from 1995 started boarding a few mares in Ocala. He also bought one Thoroughbred privately for Sheikh Mohammed, Express Tour (Tour d'Or). Though another with no pedigree (literally “born in a friend's backyard”), he took his chance in the Kentucky Derby after turning over Street Cry (Ire) in the G3 UAE Derby, and later won the GII Jerome H.

One way or another, such a varied apprenticeship has perhaps given Moreau a slightly less “standard” eye.

“In Europe, you saw things a little bit differently,” he reflects. “Then, in Ocala, you needed a very fast-looking horse, stocky, more like a Quarter Horse. And now, if you look in my pasture, you'll see mares that are a bit more classy-looking. But I still want strong, muscular types. Pleasant Smile looked that way: she wasn't very tall, but she was stocky and correct.”

The most important lesson he retained, however, was always to maintain that intimate connection with his horses.

“Right from when I was in the show ring, I have always been hands-on,” he notes. “So I never wanted to have a lot of horses. The most foals I ever had in one year, with my partners, was 18. Every evening after dinner, I love to go and watch those babies. Even after 50 years, you're still always trying to get in their minds. To me, the best racehorses tend to be those that are most willing to work with people. Having said that, Eddie Woods said Bushfire was very difficult to break, dumped all his riders. But she wasn't mean: she was tough, she had character.”

What Moreau does resent, quite candidly, is the market imperative for unproven stallions that then inundate the sales.

“I hate having to go to first-year sires all the time,” he says. “If you think about how many good mares are wasted on those horses, every year, it's crazy. And then you go to the yearling sale and find yourself against 35 others by same stallion. That really happened to me once, in one day! So I prefer to go where they don't overbreed, like Airdrie, Claiborne, Darley, Lane's End, etc.

“This business works off a lot of negatives. As soon as a trainer has had a couple by a stallion, and they're no good, he won't want another. And we all know how many champions have not been very good in front. But if you take your horse out of the stall, and those front legs aren't perfect, then that's it.”

Wildcat Red | Leslie Martin

Sure enough, Moreau's absolute priority in his mares is conformation. Ideally they will have been able to run, as well, but he simply can't afford the top pedigrees. None of these good horses–Bushfire, Wildcat Red, Smile Happy–had any kind of blood, but he raised an athlete every time.

Moreau was duly proud to sell a colt by Wildcat Red, this horse he had made, for as much as $180,000 to become top colt at OBS October a couple of years ago. “Out of a mare that had produced nothing,” he says. “But he was so gorgeous! People couldn't believe that any horse with so much 'white' on the page could make that kind of money. So this is the kind of stuff that makes me happy: to create a beautiful horse, with a big eye, smart, athletic.”

And that's just what he believes he will be offering at the September Sale, between just two in his own consignment and a couple selling with his friend Nicky Drion.

Certainly he cannot suppress his excitement over Hip 541, a filly from the final crop of Arrogate out of a graded stakes-placed mare. The half-sister by Malibu Moon proved a fine pinhook (Moreau sold her as a weanling for $90,000 to Glencrest Farm, and Four Star Sales moved her on last September for $290,000) and Moreau plainly views this one as something else again.

“Keeneland wanted to put her in Book 1,” he discloses. “They really loved her. She's not a typical Arrogate. You know, sometimes they can be kind of rangy. This filly is all muscle. I mean, she is a beast. I don't think I ever had a filly as strong as this. In fact I was afraid she was going to be 'musclebound', but she walks so well. She's extremely correct and, though she looks like a colt when she comes out of the stall, she has a filly head and beautiful eye. She's just a force of nature, and really should make an impression over there.”

He hopes that Hip 755, a filly by Audible, will not suffer by comparison with her neighbor at Barn 28.

“Because she's very classy,” Moreau stresses. “I haven't seen tons of Audibles, of course, but I feel he tends to get horses slightly longer-backed than his sire; a little bit 'tubular' in the body. But not this filly. She has a very good hip and she's very strong, fairly compact, with a beautiful neck and throatlatch. She's very correct, as well.”

The pair with Drion, meanwhile, are both by Enticed. “And the filly [Hip 3484] is the biggest I've ever had in my life,” he marvels. “She's got to be 16.3, you would think there's no way she can be yearling. Yet everything is in proportion: she's so well balanced, just moves like a racehorse. And she's 100% Godolphin because the dam is by Street Cry out of a [French Classic-placed] daughter of Groom Dancer.

“The colt [3531] is out of a Smart Strike mare and moves like a cat. He reminds me of the horses my family had, in France, long ago: rangy, a lot of leg, maybe not biggest hip but a beautiful shoulder, perfectly straight and correct.”

It's been a trying summer for Moreau, who was hospitalized on holiday in France with an infection, before promptly contracting COVID; and he has just had knee surgery. But nothing will ever dampen his enthusiasm for his vocation.

“After all, we're supposed to be tough in this horse business!” he exclaims. “I will have my daughter Natalie helping me at OBS in October, she's always been so good. I have six there, including a couple of spectacular colts, the pinhookers should be all over them.

“You know, I was kind of broke when I came to Kentucky, after my divorce. The economy was down, I had $7,000 in my pocket and three old mares. But if you have the passion, you can survive.

“I remember when I was young, my family lost nearly everything. All the mares aborted in two days. There was no pneumonia vaccine, then, and we lost 13 foals on one day, and the 14th the next. It was atrocious, we had to pile up those babies and burn the carcasses. So raising horses, it's tough, it's very up and down.

“But I've been in the business for 50 years now. I left school when I was 14 to work for my parents. And when young people want to work with horses, I tell them: If you have that passion, you will succeed. You may not become a billionaire, and sometimes it's easy to give up. But if you're prepared to work, and don't get discouraged, you can get so much out of horses. Every time a foal is born, a new dream begins. I would not want to trade my life–the wonderful experiences I have had, and the life I have now–for any other.”