One of US racing’s most powerful racing and breeding operations, WinStar, has brought a significant part of its racing stable in-house and recruited Frenchman Rodolphe Brisset to run the facility.
As a result of a shift in focus 39-year-old Brisset has moved into the WinStar stallion farm in Versailles, Kentucky. The facility also boasts a state-of-the-art training centre where a majority of the owner-breeder’s Thoroughbred string will now be trained.
It’s a significant step in the burgeoning career of Brisset, who last month saddled morning-line favorite We The People to finish fourth in the Belmont Stakes after a stunning 10½-length victory in the G3 Peter Pan at the same venue.
“I got approached two weeks ago with an idea where WinStar wanted to make their farm a private training centre,” says Brisset, who credits Alain de Royer-Dupre with fuelling his interest in training.
“They offered me the job and I took it,” he goes on. “I can’t compare this to what Aidan O’Brien does for Coolmore but it’s a similar idea to keep 90% of each crop in training at the training centre and try to run them from our facility. I was lucky enough to work for the Aga Khan and Monsieur Royer Dupre, and Aiglemont was the same kind of thing.”
Brisset adds: “There is a very good team here in place and everybody is very excited about developing our season here. I don’t know the exact numbers that will be in training because they will continue sending horses to other trainers – just not as many as they used to.”
Brisset could have a string of up to 80 at WinStar while continuing to operate a public stable of around 20 from Keeneland racecourse.
Since he took out his licence in 2017 after 11 years working for Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott, Brisset has trained 148 winners of $10 million in prize-money. His biggest wins were achieved with Quip, who won the Tampa Bay Derby and Oaklawn Handicap, plus G2 winners My Majestic Rose and Positive Spirit.
It has been a long and varied apprenticeship for Brisset. Born in Tours, France, he started in the sport as a jockey but soon realised his future lay out of the saddle and, even after spending a successful year booking rides for Christophe Soumillon, decided he wanted to be more hands-on with the horses after a stint with Royer-Dupre.
“I rode for three years,” he recalls. “I was struggling with weight and I wasn’t very good to be honest. I guess I am more a morning person than an afternoon person. I took a year as an agent.
“I went to school with Christophe and took his book in 2003,” he explains. “He won the Cravache d’Or that year when he was the first jockey to win more that 200 races in a year. But it was not what I wanted to do.
“Spending time with Monsieur Royer-Dupre and seeing how technical, precise on detail and how good a horseman he was gave me the idea to be a trainer,” he adds. “So I made the move to America in 2005 where working for Mr Mott was a big step forward.”
Brisset has trained for WinStar from the start and was involved in the pre-training of the 2018 Triple Crown winner Justify. “For the first two years I was doing pre-training and WinStar was sending me some of the babies to get them forward and then we would send them to the big guys, Mr Baffert, Mr Pletcher and Mr Mott,” he says.
“Justify was among that crop and after two years we developed a relationship and I got to keep some good horses and after five years this feels like the normal next step in my career to try to win some Grade 1s.
“We’ve been knocking on the door and have been lucky enough to win a couple of G2s and G3s. In five years we can say we’ve been successful enough but still have to get that G1 out of the way. I put a lot of pressure on myself to get it done as soon as possible.”
Brisset had high hopes that We The People might achieve that target in the Belmont, where he faded to finish fourth. “The mile and a half was a little too long for We The People; he didn’t stay,” he explains.
“We gave him ten days off after the race. He’s been galloping here at WinStar. He’s going to breeze some more and then we will map out a plan. It could be the Jim Dandy, it could be the West Virginia Derby. The horse is doing really good and we are hoping he can be a G1 winner for sure.”
WinStar farm has a seven-furlong dirt track, uphill gallop, swimming pool and turnout pens and paddocks. The first runners under the new arrangement will emerge later in July.
“I wish you could see the facilities here,” adds Brisset. “They’ve put the money down to put a dirt track in here. It’s wide enough so we can train both ways. We will have to prove ourselves but from what I’ve seen after being here for ten days I feel pretty hopeful that we will be able to be successful.”
• Visit the WinStar Farm website
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