Group 1-winning trainer banned for six months for falsifying ownership details

Group 1-winning trainer Fabrice Vermeulen has been banned for six months by France Galop after a lengthy investigation into claims he falsified the ownership details of 12 horses. Three months of the sentence will be suspended for five years.

The Belgian-born, Chantilly-based trainer is best known for sending out Lily's Candle to land the Prix Marcel Boussac on Arc day in 2018 – the same year his Barkaa won the Prix Vanteaux – while in recent seasons he has enjoyed success with Chachnak and Pretty Tiger in important Classic trials.

Vermeulen has enjoyed a flying start to 2022, saddling 14 winners, and lies second only to Jean-Claude Rouget in prize-money earned after a lucrative spell at the Cagnes-sur-Mer winter meeting.

There is no little irony in the fact the France Galop investigation was triggered after Vermeulen himself made a claim for unpaid training fees against owner Laetitia Louis.

Lily's Candle provided Fabrice Vermeulen with a Group 1 breakthrough in the 2018 Prix Marcel BoussacCredit: Edward Whitaker

Louis and another owner Laurence Lavenu were both warned against future conduct, while Haras du Logis Saint-Germain received a fine of €1,500. All parties have 14 days to lodge an appeal with the France Galop stewards.

Many of the administrative breaches of which Vermeulen has been found guilty relate to the involvement of an ownership entity called SAS Le Marais, a company registered to his longtime associate Jeremy Para.

Le Marais was subject to an investigation by the Service Central des Courses et Jeux – the branch of law enforcement with specific oversight of the racing and gambling sector – which came to a head in July 2020 and whose findings led France Galop to bar the company from racehorse ownership.

As well as being a key part of Vermeulen's set-up, Para is also a licensed bloodstock agent and the France Galop case alleged that the pair used third parties to hide Le Marais's ownership of shares in a number of horses.

In Vermeulen's initial claim for unpaid bills on September 28, he had invoiced Louis for 75 per cent of the training fees for Rising Star, even though she was registered as the sole owner.

When asked to explain the discrepancy, Vermeulen initially claimed that his own training company owned the other 25 per cent but in the course of further hearings it emerged Para was the other shareholder in the now three-year-old filly.

Jeremy Para (left) with Pretty Tiger after the Prix Eugene Adam at Saint-Cloud last JulyCredit: Racing Post/Scott Burton

A similar pattern of obscuring the true nature of partnerships in which Le Marais had unauthorised holdings emerged in the case of the colt Machu Pichou, whom France Galop had been informed was the sole property of Louis but whose invoicing references a 25 per cent share each for Vermeulen's training company and for Lavenu.

Invoices for another horse, Allsburg Bilberry, for May, June and July of 2021 all referenced a 25 per cent stake for Le Marais, even though Louis was registered as the sole owner at the time.

All three horses remain suspended from racing while the true nature of their ownership is established, while a further nine horses escaped sanction, either because their situation had been cleared up, or because they had been retired.

Para received a year's racecourse ban, again with six months suspended. In passing judgement on Para, the three-person panel referred to "a grave and intolerable twisting" of the rules, and underlined that his activities as a bloodstock agent gave his company no separate entitlement as an owner.

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