The Belle Epoque Continues for Meautry

'Depuis 1875' is proudly printed under the name of Haras de Meautry on the website of the renowned French nursery, and longevity is a key factor at the Rothschild family's stud in varied respects. 

For almost 150 years, the  breeding of Thoroughbreds has taken place at the farm at Touques, just outside Deauville, which was at one stage part of an even greater operation and included land which is now occupied by an international showjumping centre in Deauville itself.

The Rothschild family has been intrinsically linked not just to Normandy, but to racing at the highest level on both sides of the Channel throughout that time. Baron Edouard de Rothschild, who took over Haras de Meautry on the death of his father Guy in 2007, is not just one of the country's longest-standing owner/breeders but also properly immersed in the politics of French racing as the president of France-Galop.

On Sunday, he had to stand down from presentation duties for the G1 Prix Rothschild for the happiest of reasons: he won the race with his homebred filly Mqse De Sevigne (Ire) (Siyouni {Fr}). The four-year-old's family has been within the Rothschild fold since her unraced third dam Cleophis (Fr) (Crepello {GB}) was acquired from the famed owner/breeder Marcel Boussac. Both Mqse De Sevigne's granddam Une Pensee (Fr) and dam Penne (Fr) are by Rothschild-bred stallions in Kenmare (Fr) and Sevres Rose (Fr) respectively. 

Penne, now 20, was twice a winner and twice placed in Listed contests in her racing days, making her one of the most accomplished of the 127 foals sired by the unraced Sevres Rose, a son of Caerleon and Indian Rose (Fr), who won the G1 Prix Vermeille and G3 Prix Cleopatre for Baron Guy de Rothschild and was by another former Meautry resident in General Holme (Noholme {Aus}).

While Penne is clearly one of the most celebrated residents at the Normandy farm, stud manager Nick Bell doesn't sugarcoat his description of the mare who has not only produced Mqse De Sevigne but also four-time Group 1 winner Meandre (Fr) (Slickly {Fr}), who was her first foal.

“She's a great big brute of a mare, and she really stamps her stock,” Bell says. “We've had huge problems with her producing giants. She went to Frankel one year which was a major mistake as she produced a massive filly who never ran. She hasn't had a foal now for two years but with her stock you are always wondering if they're going to get too big.

“I take notes on the horses every month and we weigh them, and I was going through the notes on Mqse De Sevigne when she was here as a foal and a yearling and every single time I put, 'I hope she doesn't get too big'.”

Mqse De Sevigne is certainly statuesque and Bell's description of the latest Group 1 winner to emanate from the Meautry paddocks is more glowing than that of her mother.

He says, “She's an absolutely beautiful filly, she really is, and a really graceful walker.”

Penne is already accompanied by three of her daughters at the farm, with Pensee Spirituelle (Fr) (Invincible Spirit {Ire}), who is one of her six winning offspring, proving to have the opposite tendencies to her mother when it comes to her own foals.

“She looks the absolute image of her mother. If the two of them are out in the field we'd be very hard pressed to tell which is which, but the first foals that she has produced have been absolutely tiny,” Bell notes. “It's funny, you think you know families and then they suddenly do strange things on you.”

Despite having topped the Arqana August Sale with a Galileo colt back in 2008, Haras de Meautry is more owner/breeder operation than commercial enterprise, which lends a certain amount of freedom, as Bell explains.

“You can experiment, if you think something will be quite an interesting mating, you can go off and do it without having to worry about the vagaries of the market,” he says. “That's the advantage we have. For years we have used some non-commercial sires that wouldn't be expensive, because we could afford to as we weren't selling the yearlings.”

The late Haras du Logis resident Slickly would be a prime example of that strategy having worked well for Rothschild, though returning to the well does not necessarily guarantee success. 

He adds, “Meandre was always a lovely-looking horse, but then we went back to Slickly the following year and got a filly called Ondoyante, who again looked just like her mother, and it's funny, with Penne, we were praying for colts, but we got quite a lot of fillies, which of course is useful now. I think she went three times to Slickly and one was very, very good and the rest were no good.”

Penne's daughters, the multiple winner and Listed-placed Dogma (Fr) (Mount Nelson {GB}) and the unraced Une Fausse Venus (Fr) (Saxon Warrior {Jpn}), complete the trio currently in production at Meautry.

It used to take about half an hour to get [Penne's] bridle on every morning. She's quite a character but we forgave her a long time ago.

“Dogma only has one ovary and she has become very tricky to breed,” Bell says. “Une Fausse Venus never ran; she had nothing but problems, then we covered her and she is now in foal to Mehmas. Penne has also got very tricky now. We've spent ages trying to get her back in foal to Siyouni. Eventually she went back in foal to him in June, but with twin pregnancies right on top of each other. We squeezed one and everything seemed fine. We had a heartbeat in the other one but after 28 days she lost it.”

He adds, “She's 21 next year but she looks fantastic and you wouldn't realise that she's the age she is. She's this wild-looking mare, and she is wild. She has settled down a bit now in her old age but apparently when she was in training with Jean-Claude Rouget it used to take about half an hour to get her bridle on every morning. She's quite a character but we forgave her a long time ago.”

If Penne is approaching her twilight years, her sire, Sevres Rose, is already there and lives on in glorious, if steady, retirement at Meautry at the ago of 30.

“He's still here. It takes him about five minutes to get out to his paddock these days and it's the same one he's been in for years and years,” says Bell. “They all live here for ages and ages. We've got paddocks of retired horses.”

He's not kidding. Even more remarkably, Dievotchka (GB), who provided the Rothschilds with the other winner of their own race in Esoterique (Ire) (Danehill Dancer {Ire}), died earlier this year at the truly grand age of 34. By Dancing Brave (GB) and out of the Jim Joel mare High And Dry (GB) (High Line {GB}), Dievotchka, though unraced, eventually proved to be an inspired purchase from her breeder Windfields Farm from the Keeneland July Yearling Sale back in 1990. Her black-type winning offspring are led by Esoterique, who added the G1 Sun Chariot and G1 Prix Jacques Le Marois to her Prix Rothschild success, as well as two Group 3 victories. Her siblings include the Group 2 winners Russian Cross (Ire) (Cape Cross {Ire}), Russian Hope (Ire) (Rock Hopper {GB}) and Archange d'Or (Ire) (Danehill), as well as the Listed winners Russian Desert (Ire) (Desert Prince {Ire}) and Russian Hill (GB) (Indian Ridge {Ire}).

Esoterique's transition from a glittering racing career to broodmare has not been plain sailing, but it was also not unexpected. In a patchy spell at stud, she finally delivered a longed-for filly this spring, who will hopefully eventually join several grand-daughters of Dievotchka already in production at the stud.

Bell explains, “She's back in foal to Kingman (GB) and has a Kingman filly foal, which is fantastic, because we were looking for a filly. Her yearling colt [also by Kingman] will go to Andre Fabre. She's very, very difficult to get in foal. She had this ovary problem when she was racing and that's why she was off for a long period of time, and I think that's why Edouard kept her in training for as long as he did, because he knew that she may not be easy.”

He continues, “The first year we thought we'd keep her local but unfortunately she didn't go in foal to Le Havre (Ire). She went to NEH in Newmarket and they found that there was a granular tumour in one of her ovaries so they removed that ovary. She went to Galileo three times and we got one out of her, and then we decided we'd change and go to Kingman, and luckily the first time she got in foal straightaway. She is very tricky though, and they've done a great job at Juddmonte and at John James's to get her in foal. She had quite a difficult foaling as well. 

“We haven't got a lot of fillies from that family. Russian Hill, who was the best mare that we had [out of Dievotchka] bred colt after colt after colt, and she is retired now.”

Mqse De Sevigne became the tenth Group 1 winner for Siyouni, who is out on his own in the French stallion ranks. Though the sire numbers in the country have been boosted by some interesting new recruits of late, the loss of some more established names has been keenly felt.

You do get a sense of history here. It's quite something. You tend to feel that you're only a guardian here for a short period of time.

“We're a little bit light on proven stallions in France at the moment and obviously we would like to use proven stallions as much as we can because you kind of know what you're getting,” Bell says.

“We used Wootton Bassett (GB) right from the first year, so he's a huge loss, and we used Le Havre plenty and the one good thing is we have a lot of Le Havre fillies, and he looks like he's going to be a good broodmare sire.”

He adds, “Occasionally we'll send a filly to race in America and perhaps leave her there to be covered and then bring her back. In fact, Victorine (Fr), by Le Havre, was covered by Kitten's Joy and that colt is now in training with Andre Fabre.”

The British-born Bell revels in the history of Haras de Meautry, which he joined in 2007 after previous stints in Newmarket as assistant to Tom Jones, as yearling manager at Ballylinch Stud, and later at Haras de Bouquetot until it was sold by owner Nicholas Springer.

“It worked out as perfect timing,” he says. “Edouard was about to take over Meautry as his father had just died, and he was looking for a manager. I was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time.”

With a view of Deauville racecourse from the highest point of the farm, and the area having had such close ties with the Rothschild family for a century and a half, Bell admits that Sunday was special day for all involved. 

He says, “It was absolutely fantastic. Edouard's son Louis presented the trophy to Edouard that he should have been presenting, and Alexis Pouchin, who rode his first Group 1 winner, his father is one of the travelling head lads for Andre Fabre, so it really was a proper family affair.”

Bell adds, “You do get a sense of history here. It's quite something. You tend to feel that you're only a guardian here for a short period of time and that you have to keep the legacy going. We sell very few yearlings and tend to keep pretty well everything. Edouard is in it for the racing–to go racing and enjoy it.”

There could be no better principle for the head of France-Galop, and few more enjoyable achievements than to have had two homebred winners of the family race on the course that feels like home.