Adrien Cugnasse spoke to Nick Luck about Elie Hennau standing down as France Galop’s managing director after only a couple of years in the position.
There was no big announcement. Instead, French media alerts trickled in at the backend of last week.
Elie Hennau, they stated, appointed managing director of France Galop (one of Europe’s most powerful racing authorities) at the start of 2024, had stepped down from the position with immediate effect.
“A very blurry situation,” is how Adrien Cugnasse, editor in chief of Jour de Galop, put it today, speaking to Nick Luck on the Nick Luck Daily podcast.
Luck commented that it was only last week that Elie Hennau was in Riyadh, representing France Galop at the 41st Asian Racing Conference.
“To remain in his position,” Cugnasse explained, “you have to work with the full confidence of the various members of the board. I think that after a certain time, his [Hennau’s] way of seeing his job was probably different to the elected members of the board and gradually they went in different directions.”
Hennau’s departure arrives a few months after the departure of Emmanuelle Malecaze-Doublet as head of the gambling operator Pari Mutuel Urbain (PMU), in which France Galop is a major shareholder.
It also comes after France Galop announced a reduction in prize money to help better balance its books.
“I suppose now they’ll probably look for somebody with more experience in terms of relationships with the betting operator,” said Cugnasse.
He suggested this could mean “someone with less ambitious plans and with their feet on the ground” or, in other words, “somebody less flamboyant projects who can stabilise the situation with trainers and breeders in order to preserve the industry’s grassroots.”
Luck asked if Cugnasse thought that, by choosing Hennau, France Galop had appointed someone was going to “attack” when they actually required an individual who could “defend”.
Cugnasse confirmed he believed that to be the case, adding that he “wouldn’t be surprised” if France Galop “find somebody inside the racing body” to replace Hennau in the long term, rather than opting for a recruit from outside the industry.
Though he’d been working in insurance before accepting his France Galop position, Belgian-born Hennau had grown up around racing, had been a keen amateur jockey, and was president of the FEGENTRI organisation for years.
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