Thoroughbred horse racing's most important annual two days of racing-- in the United States and arguably the world-- concluded today. The richest of those events, the $5 million Breeders' Cup Classic, was won for the first time by a filly or mare, Zenyatta, which closed out her undefeated career with her 14th victory. The second-place finisher to the favored Zenyatta was longshot Gio Ponti, trained by Christophe Clement.
Since 1995, Christophe has trained most of our horses. We feel close to him and his wife, Valerie, and their two children, Miguel and Charlotte, and we are proud of his well-deserved, growing success. When we first sent our horses to him, he was still in his twenties and early in his career as an independent trainer. Friends of ours had had horses in France with his late father, the successful trainer, Miguel Clement; and Christophe's older brother, Nicolas, now a successful trainer in France in his own right, had visited us as a teenager at Saratoga. Consequently, I had followed with interest Christophe's debut as an American trainer.
When I decided to switch trainers, I asked Christophe to take our horses, on the theory that if he was as good a horseman as I thought he was, he would soon be too popular to have room for our horses unless we were an established client. Once again, as happened to me so often over the years, I got lucky by giving a younger person a chance before it was obvious that he was ready. It has been a long while since Christophe has needed our horses in his stable. In an article in The New York Times two days ago, Joe Drape noted that of this year's top 10 American money-winning trainers, Christophe is the only one who has never had a horse in his care that tested positive for a medication violation.
Through talent, hard work, and superior organization, Christophe has been able to win important races while conceding an edge to those less scrupulous. Although he has quietly gone about his business rather than be strident or self-righteous about the improper use of drugs, he has shown courage on the topic when asked to do so. In 1999, I wrote an article, entitled "Full Disclosure," for the October 23 issue of a leading trade publication, The Blood-Horse, about medication practices in the industry in general and in the state of Kentucky in particular. To corroborate what I had to say, I asked Christophe if I could cite something in the article that he had told me. Unlike me, a minor owner/breeder with nothing to fear from those who would resent such exposure of industry practices, a young trainer like Christophe had a great deal to lose by gratuitously making enemies. Nevertheless, he readily assented to my use of his name.
Before publishing the article, the then-editor of The Blood-Horse, Ray Paulick, who certainly had to be concerned about industry backlash, asked me what I hoped to accomplish by writing it. I replied that I hoped to bring hidden practices into the open and start a dialog. (Of course, I was also mad. As my wife, Susan, says, "It wouldn't be fun to win by cheating, but it's no fun being beaten by cheaters!") To my surprise, the article kicked off a furor, including articles by others and, in Kentucky, a medication law being passed and a leading state racing official losing his job. If Christophe's association with the article caused him any problems, he never complained.
