Epsom dreams at the double for the man with the monkey umbrella who once took Ascot’s bookies to the cleaners

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Good Morning Bloodstock is an exclusive daily email sent by the Racing Post bloodstock team and published here as a free sample.

On this occasion, Scott Burton speaks to Jean-Francois Gribomont, co-breeder of Classic hopefuls Maltese Cross and A La Prochaine – subscribers can get more great insight every Monday to Friday.

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Before the week is out at York and Newbury there may be new names who enter the picture for both the Derby and the Oaks but, at the time of writing, the number of British-trained contenders trading at 25-1 or under across the two Classics is, if not a handful, then certainly a number you could wrap two arms around.

Consider then the chances that among that small band of home-trained hopes, are both a colt and a filly bred in partnership by a man with 12 mares. 

There is understandable excitement for Jean-Francois Gribomont, a Belgian textile manufacturer who first fell under the spell of the Derby when listening to Sir Peter O’Sullevan call home the likes of Phil Drake and Lavandin in the mid-1950s on short-wave radio. 

There is also more than a tinge of sadness for Gribomont, who co-bred Lingfield Derby Trial winner Maltese Cross and Cheshire Oaks third A La Prochaine with Jacques Rossi under the latter’s Ecurie du Sud banner. 

Rossi died of cancer last November at the age of 68, less than six weeks after Maltese Cross had broken his maiden at Newmarket on his second start for William Haggas. 

A slow-maturing Lope De Vega half-sister to German Derby runner-up Mr Hollywood, A La Prochaine has only won a backend Newbury maiden, but caught the eye of plenty behind Amelia Earhart at Chester last week. 

But if you were to race straight to the details of how his two Classic hopefuls were bred, you would be bypassing some truly wonderful stories involving, among other things, Gribomont’s Royal Ascot betting coup, an ill-advised purchase in Deauville which led to his first runner in a British Classic, and the decision to buy back his horse of a lifetime at an eye-watering sum on the eve of the 2015 Arc. 

Gribomont has been dreaming about horses almost ever since those early O’Sullevan commentaries, a virus which was given a lethal dose of optimism when the first horse he and his grandfather raced was a winner, something the older man told him was a “catastrophe”. 

And Britain has always been a fascinating part of the racing jigsaw for Gribomont, who counted Ian Balding, John Dunlop, bloodstock agent Dick O’Gorman and Ladbrokes’ man in Europe Clive Dennison among the friends and acquaintances he made along the way, many of them first encountered during the heyday of racing in the Belgian resort of Ostend. 

In 1997 Gribomont’s maroon silks with green crossbelts flashed to success in the King’s Stand Stakes at the royal meeting courtesy of Don’t Worry Me, a filly he bought out of training from Franny Lee at Tatts for 31,000gns, and in whose purchase price he may have made a sizeable dent 18 months later at the expense of the Ascot layers, who were only too happy to oblige him at 40-1. 

Gribomont takes up the story: “I had bought an umbrella from Kipling bearing a small monkey. The next day in one of the British newspapers they carried the headline ‘only a monkey backed the horse!’

“At the time I used to record SIS coverage of British racing and watch back the programmes after I’d finished work, between midnight and two o’clock in the morning. 

“I was very impressed by the speed this filly showed so I sent a good friend from Agence FIPS to Newmarket to buy her.

“He phoned me and said he’d seen a lot of good horses and I should buy this or that one. 

“I insisted he bought her and then I applied the ‘John Hammond’ system, racing her out in the provinces to qualify her for handicaps, before we started to go up. 

“Guy Henrot was the assistant to my first trainer in France, Mick Bartholomew, and he was very surprised by my strategy, but applied it strictly.

“He was interviewed on the BBC after she won at Ascot and told them ‘one horse, one win, I will not come back!’

“I was very confident that day except I wasn’t sure about the ground after it rained all morning.

“I went to see some bookmakers with my monkey and I collected my money. But I was the only one!”

Prince Gibraltar (maroon cap) was bred by Gribomont and is now plying his trade as a stallion

Gribomont paid for his studies by exploiting an era when he followed racing in both Britain and France, but the oddsmakers in one and the pari-mutuel players in another were largely ignorant of the sport on the other side of the English Channel. 

But his journey in racing might not have got much further but for another benign intervention from his grandfather, one which allowed him to purchase a mare by Luthier called Sudden Glory, who was in foal to Kris.

It was a pedigree which delighted the internationally minded Gribomont, but which evidently didn’t make such an impression on other buyers in Deauville.

“I said to myself that I’d like to be the owner of this mare for one second,” recalls Gribomont at the start of an anecdote which really should fall under the heading of ‘don’t try this at home kids’

“So I made the opening bid at 200,000 French Francs. I didn’t have the money but she was very well bred in Britain and I was sure she would go higher; to my surprise nobody else bid!

“I panicked and said to my good friend Gilles Forien: ‘I’ve made a terrible mistake!’

“I went home and told my grandfather that I had 160,000 francs, but I was short by 40,000.

“He laughed, but he gave me the 40,000 francs”

The Kris filly that Sudden Glory was carrying was named Sudden Love, and she carried the colours of Princess Lucy Ruspoli to second behind Diminuendo in both the Oaks and the Yorkshire Oaks.

She also hit the crossbar in the Nassau and the Prix Vermeille, before finishing off a wonderful 1988 campaign with Luca Cumani when gaining a well-deserved success in the EP Taylor Stakes at Woodbine. 

The best horse bred by Gribomont to carry his own colours is undoubtedly Prince Gibraltar (pictured below), a son of Rock Of Gibraltar out of the Pennekamp mare Princess Sofia, a Darley castoff who reached a rating of 86 with trainer Alex Pantall. 

At two Prince Gibraltar won the Group 1 Criterium de Saint-Cloud by five lengths for Jean-Claude Rouget and was third in the following season’s Prix du Jockey Club, before going on to win the Grosser Preis von Baden. 

The colt ran seventh to Treve in the 2014 Arc and once again lined up at Longchamp a year later, though only after his owner had walked away from the Arqana sales ring across the river at Saint-Cloud on the eve of the race.

“I bought him back at €1,350,000 which, for me, was incredible money,” says Gribomont. “I had to convince my family; to ask my daughters and my friends for help.”

After a sticky start at stud with Gribomont’s old friends Gilles and Aliette Forien at Haras de Montaigu, Prince Gibraltar has been much better received in the jumping heartlands of Burgundy at Haras de Cercy. 

His progeny have already made their presence felt at Auteuil, while the Dan Skelton-trained Maestro Conti has begun to carry his sire’s name further afield. 

Maestro Conti is one of Prince Gibraltar leading lightsCredit: Edward Whitaker (racingpost.com/photos)

Gribomont says: “I’m happy because he didn’t start so well but now he’s a very good dual-purpose stallion and this year he will have 80 mares. 

“There is not a single Prince Gibraltar who races that I don’t follow. 

"This weekend there will be five Prince Gibraltars running, and I will watch all their races. It multiplies the pleasure and the dreams, and you can’t buy that.” 

Gribomont has the onerous responsibility of keeping a business going that employs north of a thousand people, as well as representing the textile industry across the continent in front of the European Commission. 

“It’s a tough time to compete with China and India,” says Gribomont. “My biggest worry is trying to keep my employees in a job but happily, the horses allow me to dream.

“It’s a passion and there’s always a future, always a tomorrow. There’s a Paris-Turf and a Racing Post every day, and so there will always be reasons to dream. 

“I look around at other people of my age, and they seem sad because they have nothing to occupy them.

“We still have dreams, and it’s beautiful. I’ve trained more than a thousand winners in Belgium and when you see a foal or a yearling, you can change your mind about them from day to day.

“They each have their own personality, and they don’t adapt to you, you have to adapt to them.”

Such eternal optimism might seem a requisite part of the trainer/owner/breeder’s armoury, but Gribomont believes he also detects enthusiasm in the public demeanor of Maltese Cross’s trainer, William Haggas.

He says: “It’s trial and error and now I’m dreaming all over again because to be in the Oaks and the Derby is a privilege I never thought I would have, and certainly not with horses I bought together with Jacques at the end of his life.

“The last conversation I had with him, just a few days before his death, was to tell him that Maltese Cross had won. He was so happy.

“He’s important for that reason and he’s also a good-looking horse, while I’m proud of the work done by [Rossi’s son] Charley, who had to take the stud over with his mother. It’s not easy for them.

“And I’m surprised to see Mr Haggas’ eyes light up when he speaks about this horse. When he talks about Maltese Cross, he seems to have a different attitude. 

“I know we probably won’t beat the O’Brien team but if we’re second, third or fourth, we’ll be very happy.”

The Rossi family’s Haras de la Cour Blanche chose to sell A La Prochaine’s dam, Margie’s Music, a decision which was vindicated when the Gestut Ammerland-bred daughter of Hurricane Run made €1m at Arqana last December, selling to Broadhurst Agency and Ecurie des Monceaux. 

Maltese Cross (Tom Marquand, left) on their way to victory at LingfieldCredit: Edward Whitaker (racingpost.com/photos)

But Maltese Cross’s dam Nabatea - like Margie’s Music from a deep German family - remains in the ownership of Gribomont and Ecurie du Sud, and the future looks bright in terms of what the partnership has bred from the pair.

“Margie’s Music was sold but I found out this morning Nabatea is once again in foal to Sea The Stars, which is very good news,” says Gribomont.

“She has a yearling filly by Sea The Stars and so does Margie’s Music. 

“When Jacques died it was difficult for the family and they asked me to sell Margie’s Music. I love those people and, even though I didn’t want to sell, I said I would follow their wishes.”

Gribomont sent two mares to Sea The Stars in his first season at Gilltown in 2010, a relationship which has continued in the years since through foal shares.

While he and Rossi sold both Maltese Cross and A La Prochaine as foals at Arqana, the agreement with the Aga Khan Studs is that, as both families continue to flourish, the two Sea The Stars offspring will be sold as yearlings in Deauville this August. 

Gribomont says: “You have to be humble with horses. I own 12 mares either by myself or with partners, and we have to discuss everything in terms of whether we should go to this stallion or that. 

“How much can we afford? It’s a difficult exercise but as soon as you have made the mating, you can start dreaming.”

Gribomont is yet to determine if his business commitments will allow him to get to Epsom to see one or both of A La Prochaine and Maltese Cross run.

Either way, he is in no doubt that the Derby remains the ultimate race to be involved with in Britain, matched only in Europe by the Arc.

He says: “I know the Derby is no longer the race to win for a lot of people but for me, it’s still the biggest race in the UK.

“And happily it is for Coolmore as well because, if they were not there, it would become a second-category race. That is unthinkable when you look back at Sea The Stars, Sir Ivor, Sea Bird. It’s the biggest race.”

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