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Prix Niel
The Prix Niel is a Group 2 flat horse race in France open to three-year-old thoroughbred colts and fillies. It is run at Longchamp over a distance of 2,400 metres (about 1½ miles), and it is scheduled to take place each year in September. The race serves as a trial for the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, which is held at the same venue three weeks later. History A precursor of the race called the Prix de Chantilly was formerly staged at Chantilly in early September. It was open to horses aged three or older, and for a period its distance was 3,100 metres. It was subsequently transferred to Longchamp and run over 3,000 metres. It was shortened to 2,400 metres in 1952, and reduced to 2,300 metres in 1953. The Prix de Chantilly was restricted to three-year-olds when a separate event was introduced for older horses in 1955. The new race was initially titled the Prix Henri Foy, and from this point the Prix de Chantilly was contested over 2,400 m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Longchamp Racecourse
The Longchamp Racecourse (french: Hippodrome de Longchamp) is a 57 hectare horse-racing facility located on the Route des Tribunes at the Bois de Boulogne in Paris, France. It is used for flat racing and is noted for its variety of interlaced tracks and a famous hill that provides a real challenge to competing thoroughbreds. It has several racetracks varying from 1,000 to 4,000 metres in length, with 46 different starting posts. The course is home to more than half of the group one races held in France, and it has a capacity of 50,000. The highlight of the calendar is the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe. Held on the first weekend in October, the event attracts the best horses from around the world. History The first race run at Longchamp was on Sunday, April 27, 1857, in front of a massive crowd. The Emperor Napoleon III and his wife Eugénie were present, having sailed down the Seine River on their private yacht to watch the third race. Until 1930, many Parisians came to the track ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yves Saint-Martin
Yves Saint-Martin (born 8 September 1941 in Agen, Lot-et-Garonne, France) is a retired champion jockey in French Thoroughbred horse race, Thoroughbred horse racing. He is widely considered one of the greatest riders in French racing history. Saint-Martin won his first race on 26 July 1958 for Suzy Volterra, Mme Suzy Volterra. He went on to be France French flat racing Champion Jockey, leading jockey fifteen times, winning the title in 1960, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1981 and 1983. In his career, Yves Saint-Martin won 3314 races worldwide, of which 3275 were in France. He is tied with three others for most wins (4) in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe and holds the record for most victories in several other Group One races, including the Prix du Jockey Club with nine. He has won a total of 30 Classics in France. At Laurel Park Racecourse near Baltimore, Maryland, Saint-Martin won the 1962 Washington, D.C. International Stakes, Washing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Sobell
Sir Michael Sobell (1 November 1892 – 1 September 1993) was a British businessman, a major philanthropist, and a prominent owner/breeder of thoroughbred racehorses. Family and childhood Sobel (from 1946, Sobell"Sobell, Sir Michael (1892–1993)", Richard Davenport-Hines, ODNB, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/53329, accessed 2019-05-10) was born in Boryslav, Galicia, into a Jewish family; he was the only son of Lewis Sobel and his wife, Esther. His family owned factories in the Austro-Hungarian empire and oil interests at Limburg in Germany, but his parents moved to England in 1903 to escape antisemitism. The family settled in Dalston, east London, where Lewis Sobell set up as a confectioner. From 1903 Michael Sobell attended the Central Foundation Boys' School on Cowper Street in Finsbury. He married his wife Anne in 1917. Business career At the age of sixteen, with money provided by his father, he set up as an importer of fancy leather accessories. He and his father su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dick Hern
William Richard Hern (20 January 1921 – 22 May 2002) was an English Thoroughbred racehorse trainer and winner of sixteen British Classic Races between 1962 and 1995, and was Champion Trainer on four occasions. Following his early career in the Army (Major), he became a riding instructor, including a spell as instructor to the Olympic gold medal-winning team in 1952. His first training licence was as private trainer to Major Lionel Holliday in 1958, at La Grange Stables in Newmarket, before moving to West Ilsley at the end of the 1962 season to take over from R. J. "Jack" Colling. Hern became a St. Leger Stakes specialist, winning the event six times. He produced three Epsom Derby winners in Troy (1979), Henbit (1980) and Nashwan (1989), who also won the 2,000 Guineas and the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes. Hern trained Brigadier Gerard who was only beaten once in eighteen races. Other major winners include Sun Princess, Dayjur, Hethersett, Bireme, Bustino, L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Willie Carson
William Fisher Hunter Carson, OBE (born 16 November 1942) is a retired jockey in thoroughbred horse racing. Life and career Best known as "Willie", Carson was born in Stirling, Scotland in 1942. He was apprenticed to Captain Gerald Armstrong at his stables at Tupgill, North Yorkshire. His first winner in Britain was Pinker's Pond in a seven-furlong apprentice handicap at Catterick Bridge Racecourse on 19 July 1962. He was British Champion Jockey five times (1972, 1973, 1978, 1980 and 1983), won 17 British Classic Races, and passed 100 winners in a season 23 times for a total of 3,828 wins, making him the fourth most successful jockey in Great Britain. Willie Carson's best season as a jockey came in 1990 when he rode 187 winners. This included riding six winners at Newcastle Racecourse on 30 June, making Carson one of only four jockeys to ride six winners at one meeting during the 20th century. However, he came second in the 1990 jockeys' champio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
François Boutin
François Boutin (21 January 1937 – 1 February 1995) was a French Thoroughbred horse trainer. The son of a farmer, he was born in the village of Beaunay in the northerly Seine Maritime département. He began riding horses at a young age and competed in show jumping and cross-country equestrianism. He began his professional racing career driving horses in harness racing then after serving as a flat racing apprentice, obtained his license as a trainer in 1964. François Boutin was the trainer for the stables of Jean-Luc Lagardère and for the Stavros Niarchos family. During his more than thirty-year career he was the leading money winner in France seven times (1976, 1978–81, 1983–84). Although victory eluded him in France's most prestigious horse race, the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, Boutin won the Poule d'Essai des Poulains on six occasions and most every other important race in the country multiple times. Racing outside France Boutin's horse Sagaro was the first to win ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philippe Paquet
Philippe Paquet is a former champion jockey from France, who in 1974 was the winner of the Prix du Jockey Club on Caracolero, and the Gran Premio d'Italia on Ribecourt. In 1976, he also won the Irish Derby on Malacate, and the Irish Oaks on Lagunette. In 1979 and 1980, he won back to back on Boiteon in Prix Maurice de Gheest. In 1981, he won his final Group one on April Run in Prix Vermeille before finishing a close third in the Arc. He was the stable jockey of famous French trainer François Boutin for nine years. He joined Boutin straight from school as a 14yr-old apprentice in 1966, via the local employment exchange. He was on board Nonoalco when the colt made a winning debut in the Prix Yacowlef at Deauville in 1973, breaking the course record in the process and having been made stable jockey to Boutin that season, although Piggott and Saint-Martin were still used when available. In 1980, he finished the 2,000 Guineas in first place on the Boutin-trained Nureyev, but was late ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Le Marmot
Le Marmot (14 May 1976 – 1981) was a French Thoroughbred racehorse and sire. He won two of his three race as a two-year-old in 1978 including the Prix La Rochette before emerging as a top-class performer in the following year when he won the Prix Greffulhe, Prix Hocquart and Prix Niel as well as finishing second in the Prix du Jockey Club and the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe and third in the Washington, D.C. International. As a four-year-old he defeated the Arc de Triomphe winner Three Troikas in the Prix Ganay and also won the Prix Niel. Le Marmot was rated one of the ten best racehorses in Europe in both 1979 and 1980. He had little opportunity to prove himself as a sire of winners, dying in 1981 at the age of five. Background Le Marmot was a bay horse with a white sock on his right hind leg bred in France by the Marquis de Talhouet Roy. He was by far the best horse sired by Amarko, who finished second in the Prix d'Harcourt and several major prizes on French provincial ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacques Wertheimer
Jacques Guy Wertheimer (18 August 1911 – 6 February 1996) was a prominent French businessman who inherited and ran the renowned House of Chanel perfume company. Wertheimer was born at the Les Forgettes villa in Deauville, to a Jewish family,World's Richest Jews ''Jerusalem Post'' the son of Germaine Revel and businessman who co-founded the Chanel perfume business in 1924. On 26 March 1947, Jacques Wertheimer married Eliane Fischer, the daughter of an . They had two sons, [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alec Head
Alec Head (31 July 1924 – 22 June 2022) was a French horse trainer and breeder. Biography Head was the owner of Haras du Quesnay, located near Deauville. A descendant of the trainers who founded the English Racing Colony in Chantilly, Oise, Head's grandfather was a jockey-turned-trainer, as was his father William Head who was a very successful jockey, trainer, and owner in both flat racing and steeplechase events. In 2018, Head was participating in interviews about his career. Head died on 22 June 2022, at the age of 97. Haras du Quesnay Head undertook an extensive restoration of the facilities and in 1959 brought in the farm's first stallion. Over the years he and his wife Ghislaine developed Haras du Quesnay into one of the leading stud farms in France with horses acquired from across Europe and the United States. The farm would be home to prominent sires and broodmares. In the 1960s, Head reportedly was training 140 horses, the majority being owned by Pierre Wertheimer o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gay Mecene
Gay Mecene (16 May 1975 – 24 December 1998) was an American-bred, French-trained Thoroughbred racehorse and sire. After winning his only race as a two-year-old in 1977, he developed into one of the best French-trained colts of his generation when he won the Prix de Guiche, Prix Eugène Adam and Prix Niel. Although he won only once in six races in the following year he showed arguably his best form when easily beating a top-class field in the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud and running second to Troy in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes. He later stood as a breeding stallion in France and Japan and had some success as a sire of winners. Background Gay Mecene was a dark bay or brown horse with no white markings bred in Kentucky by Jacqueline Getty. His sire, Vaguely Noble, won the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe in 1968 before becoming a successful breeding stallion whose best progeny included Dahlia, Exceller and Empery. Gay Mecene's dam Gay Missile was a high-class racemare ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aga Khan IV
Shāh Karim al-Husayni (born 13 December 1936), known by the religious title Mawlānā Hazar Imam by his Ismaili followers and elsewhere as Aga Khan IV, is the 49th and current Imam of Nizari Ismailis, a denomination within Shia Islam. He has held the position of imam and the title of Aga Khan since 11 July 1957, when, at the age of 20, he succeeded his grandfather, Sir Sultan Muhammad Shah Aga Khan III. The Aga Khan claims direct lineal descent from the Islamic prophet Muhammad through Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law, Ali, considered an imam in Shia Islam, and Ali's wife Fatima, Muhammad's daughter from his first marriage. His grandfather, Aga Khan III, states in his memoirs that the Shias had a "need (for) Divine guidance" after the Prophet of Islam's death, this need being fulfilled by the Imamate. According to the Aga Khan III as mentioned in his memoirs, he has actual "Divine power, guidance, and leadership (authority)." The Institution of Imamate has continued to pre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
