'We can buy these unbelievably well-bred horses as yearlings and two-year-olds - English or Irish trainers don't have that opportunity'

Four of the top jumps trainers based in France – Francois Nicolle, Noel George, Louisa Carberry and Yannick Fouin – all talk to Stuart Riley about life training in France, their ambitions and the big talking points surrounding the sport in their country

• French jump racing: it's diverse, has great prize-money and is a magnet for top British and Irish owners and trainers 

Francois Nicolle: France’s top trainer on his Gold Cup ambitions

Plenty of horses to have passed through Francois Nicolle’s yard have won on British and Irish racecourses – among them Vroum Vroum Mag, Pic D’Orhy and Monmiral – but France’s six-time champion trainer has his mind focused on doing it himself, with a long-term plan for the 2027 Cheltenham Gold Cup.

The horse in question is Kingland, who ended 2024 as the champion four-year-old hurdler. The Angus and Lynne Maclennan-owned superstar is currently out with a leg and isn’t expected back in training until next April, but that has not stopped ambitious plans being formed.

“Everyone wants me to come and run horses in Britain and Ireland, maybe one day,” says Nicolle, who has now won everything worth winning in France having finally landed the country’s most prestigious race, the Grand Steeple-Chase de Paris on Sunday.

“Lynne and Angus have a horse I hope can maybe win a Gold Cup called Kingland. It won’t be next year, but maybe, maybe 2027.

“He’s a top, top horse. I’m so disappointed because he is injured, but I’ve trained some good horses and he is as good as any of them. He’s a real crack, so maybe we will get there with him.

Francois Nicolle: "I’ve trained some good horses and he is as good as any of them"Credit: Racing Post/Burton

“It would be a big challenge. We would need to learn the programme to prepare the horse in England and Ireland. I think it would take two or three runs for them to learn how to race and it means you miss the entire French programme, and when you see all the money you can win in France, it’s a big challenge.

“If you don’t take all this, because you want to win that one – and you are not sure to win – then it’s a big risk. The Gold Cup is worth a lot of money, but all the races in France are worth a lot of money.”

Ask France’s leading jumps trainer what makes French racing special, and the answer is simple. Despite recent prize-money cuts of €20m (£16.85m), he says: “Money, money, money.” To emphasise the point, France Galop paid a record €293m (£246.8m) in prize-money and premiums to owners and breeders in 2024.

In an incredible and record-breaking double, Willie Mullins broke the €6m (£5.1m) barrier to win the Irish championship, while it took nearly £3.6m (€4.2m) to land the British equivalent.

In five of his six title-winning seasons Nicolle has amassed more than €7.3m (£6.1m), peaking with €9.6m (£8m) in 2021. The €3.99m (£3.4m) total was good enough for only third last season.

Yet Nicolle, who works his horses on a deep Royan sand track and still drives the tractor himself, still wants to learn from Mullins. 

“For me, Willie is the top,” he says. “I want to go to Willie Mullins' stable, but I wait for my invitation. It has not arrived,” he says with a playful chuckle.

“I like this man, he’s a lovely man, a top trainer and I want to see his gallop and how he works. Maybe I'll get an idea or two.

“He wants to win the Grand Steeple-Chase de Paris, but it’s like if we want to win the Gold Cup. You need a long preparation, we’d have to run in England three times to get them used to it. In France, the French steeplechase is very special. All your fences are the same. Here we have rivers, walls, brooks, oxers, bullfinches, sometimes horses don’t jump well if they’re not used to it.”

Noel George: it was a no-brainer to set up in France

Noel George could have played it safe. He could have stayed in Britain, joined his dad on the licence and eventually taken over an established business.

Instead, he took a risk, moved to France and set up with Amanda Zetterholm to make his own name. As Saturday’s Grande Course de Haies d’Auteuil victory with El Clavel proved, it’s all going rather well.

At 26, he is three years into his training career and second in the championship, with 29 winners and €1.43m (£1.21m) in prize-money. The big question is: why did he choose France? 

“You look at the situation in England and the circumstances there. From a business model point of view it’s a no-brainer,” he says. “We’re not even halfway through the year, we’ve had 29 winners and we’re closing in on €1.5m, the business model speaks for itself. When horses don’t pay their way here we ship them on, in Britain very few pay for themselves.

Noel George at Auteuil on Saturday

“Financially, it makes a lot more sense to own horses in France rather than England, and if you look at Simon Munir and Isaac Souede, their business model is paid for by their horses in France, and they now have minimal horses in Britain and Ireland to target at the very big festivals.”

He adds: “I think this is the best schooling ground in the world for young National Hunt horses and the proof is in the pudding. If you look at all the big festivals in Britain and Ireland, so many of them started off in France.”

Access to that pool of talent is also George’s unique selling point when it comes to British and Irish owners.

“The big advantage we have is getting clients in business with the top French breeders to keep the horses in training in France,” he says.

“Because we train in France the breeders are much more open to giving us access to the top pedigrees which don’t essentially come on the market, which gives us an advantage with buying young stock.

“We can buy these unbelievably well-bred young horses as yearlings and two-year-olds. An English or Irish trainer wouldn’t have the opportunity to do that, so we’ve got to make the most of it.

“The breeders want the horses to stay in France and race at three, so the pedigrees of their mares are updated. If they have a good three-year-old they have a two-year-old and yearling behind it.”

George’s big ambition is to become France’s leading trainer, but that does not mean he will shun big British and Irish targets, as he has already proved.

“My big objective is to be the number one trainer in France, but my dream is to get the good horses here competitive in the biggest races in Britain and Ireland.

“I need to prove to people we’re capable of achieving that to get people to support us on that level. I think it will come.

“It’s the best breeding in the world here, so if we’ve horses good enough we will be coming. It takes us the same amount of time to get to Cheltenham as Willie Mullins or Gordon Elliott, so if we’ve the horses we’ll go.”

In a call to British and Irish owners, he adds: “It’s a lot easier to get here than people think. Chantilly’s 25 minutes from Charles du Gaulle. It’s a 25-minute train from Gare du Nord. And Auteuil is in central Paris. It’s very high quality racing, you can get in for €5 and the Eiffel Tower’s in the background.”

Louisa Carberry: how training and racing in France is different from Britain

Louisa Carberry is perhaps France’s best target trainer. From five runners in the ‘Grand Steep’, she has a staggering three wins.

The English woman from an eventing background, with a husband from Ireland’s royal family of jumps racing before the Mullins clan’s takeover of that particular throne, has made Senonnes in north-west France her home.

Louisa Carberry: “Our training is all about stamina"

A place she describes as “in the middle of nowhere but the centre of everything”, she was drawn here by the cost.

“We couldn’t buy this farm in England,” she says. “We have 50 boxes and a four-bedroom house and 40 acres. In Lambourn we’d have got a ten-box yard with a flat. We’re an hour from a major town, but we’ve 100 racetracks within two hours and three hours from Paris.”

Without huge backing France was the only viable option for a training career and, having made a success of it, she says the two main differences with Britain are how they train and how early they race.

“There are six gallops here, but the main one we use is the very heavy gallop,” she explains. “It’s about 30 centimetres deep. We have hills, but we don’t train on them like they do in England and Ireland. We use deep sand and it gets the horses puffing, it gets the lungs open and the heart working. It means you don’t go as quick, which is good for their legs.

“Our training is all about stamina. They do six kilometres a day, every day. Whether it’s slow, medium or fast, they’re marathon runners, not sprinters, but you do have to mix it up with a bit of speed.

“They need that much more stamina and muscles, but you want to keep them relaxed as well. It’s softly softly catchy monkey, but it builds muscle and keeps their brains relaxed. We want them to learn to keep their heart-rate as low as possible, but fit so they get to the end with some gas in the tank.

“It probably takes a bit longer to get them fit. You can go quick and you get them fit quicker, but you might break them quicker and you might not keep them as sweet.”

Gran Diose: winner of £1.32m prize-money for trainer Louisa CarberryCredit: Aprh / Clementine Veret

The other difference is how early they start racing in France.

“Kauto Star started his career here in Senonnes and he was so naughty as a two-year-old they had him jumping and as soon as they could run him at three they had him out,” she says. “He raced until he was 12. He was an absolute iron horse.

“Starting them earlier does help their bone resilience and toughness. It doesn’t mean you have to go to the well too often. They’re running against other immature, jumps-bred horses.

“They’re running against similar types, and there’s a whole programme for them here at three and four and it’s really late here if they debut in the autumn as a four-year-old. They can do it, but they’re up against much more experienced horses.”

Yannick Fouin: why it's so difficult keeping good horses in France

With great racing, excellent prize-money and a wonderful lifestyle, the biggest problem for most trainers in France is keeping hold of their best horses.

With much of Willie Mullins’ success built on plundering the best talent from France as early as possible, buying talented young horses with a bracketed FR after their name has turned into the first battleground between the powerhouse operations.

For Messrs Skelton, Nicholls, Henderson, Elliott and De Bromhead, getting the raw material in through the door has become so important.

Yannick Fouin (between horses): “The real worry today for every trainer is keeping the good horses in France"

For French trainers, however, the problem is the exact opposite. How do they keep their best horses when so many come calling so early, and the cheques contain so many zeros?

For the Maisons-Laffitte-based Yannick Fouin, it is a problem he only recently found a solution for. His Six Figures, the 13-5 favourite for Sunday’s Group 1 Prix Alain du Breil, would have fetched a very healthy six-figure sum but for extreme efforts to keep him at home.

Six Figures was pinhooked as a foal, ironically in Ireland, by Alban Chevalier de Fau and a group of young enthusiasts who, when he failed to make his reserve back at auction 18 months later, accepted Fouin’s offer to take a piece of the horse and put him into training.

That would not have been enough to keep him in France once he had won on his second start at Auteuil but for the investment of a bigger owner on the French scene, Alain Jathiere, who took 30 per cent and ensured the representatives of the big Anglo-Irish buyers could be turned away.

Explaining the battle, Fouin says: “The real worry today for every trainer is keeping the good horses in France. I have a few more clients these days that want to, and last year we managed to put together some good partnerships at the sales. It is a case of unity makes strength. 

“You have to put together the right people to have good horses and that’s how you build the strength of the yard. It takes a lot and so when you get a major offer, you probably have to take it.”

Fouin is savouring still having Six Figures in his yard rather than his owners' pockets and adds: “Today when I get a really good horse, I’m able to stand back and appreciate that you need them to really power your stable.

“If you sell every good one and especially a lot of the young horses that you have spent time building up, the stable lacks something, and the staff sense it.”

Read more:

French jump racing: it's diverse, has great prize-money and is a magnet for top British and Irish owners and trainers 

Francois Nicolle breaks Grand Steeple-Chase drought as supersub Clement Lefebvre shines on Diamond Carl 

'That one's for him' - tears flow as winning team rally round paralysed jockey via FaceTime after emotional success 

'If we have a future Gold Cup horse it's him' - Noel George and Amanda Zetterholm hail new star El Clavel 

To celebrate The Story of Horseracing in 20 Races, the Racing Post's big weekly series for 2025, you can get your first month of Racing Post+ Ultimate for £20 when you sign up via web using code STORY20 – that's a whopping 60% discount. Available only to new and returning customers. Subscription will auto-renew at £49.95 unless you call our cancellation line to cancel. Sign up now.