The recently announced merging of the stables of leading French trainers Jean-Claude Rouget and Jerome Reynier will now not take place.
Rouget, the five-time champion trainer in France, has been undergoing treatment for lymphoma and in August announced that he would take out a joint-licence with Reynier from January 2025. He said at the time, “I have known Jerome for some years and when I looked at the way he works, everything about it pleased me.”
In the days following the announcement, the Aga Khan Studs relocated its horses from Rouget's stable to that of Francis-Henri Graffard.
On Thursday Reynier said that the merger “just wasn't viable”.
One of the rising forces of the French training ranks, Reynier, who is based at Calas, near Marseille, added, “It was very hard to organise, financially and structurally, with the staff and everything else.”
Reynier was represented on the international stage back in March when Facteur Cheval (Fr) won the G1 Dubai Turf at Meydan and more recently notched a top-flight success at home with Lazzat (Fr) in the G1 Prix Maurice de Gheest.
He added, “We tried to put everything in place but it was too much of a nightmare to organise.
“I'm going to expand and increase the number of horses in the south of France where I am currently very happy to train and gallop, and I will be creating a satellite yard near Paris within the next few months.”
Rouget, 71, whose training business began in Pau 46 years ago, also has a sizeable satellite operation in Deauville and is numerically the most successful trainer in European racing history. In 1991, he set a French record with his 178 wins for the season. He has saddled two of the last four winners of the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe in Sottsass (Fr) and Ace Impact (Ire), and has won the Prix du Jockey Club six times.
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