Sales success fuelling Hugo Merienne's desire to train his own champions

Few young jumps trainers have built up a contacts book as sizeable as Hugo Merienne, whose influence as a trader is showing strong growth in just four years with a licence.

Arthur Moore, Guillaume Macaire, Yannick Fouin and Willie Mullins have all shown the Normandy-born 30 year-old the ropes during his career, which began as an aspiring amateur rider, continued as a bloodstock agent, and now sees him training a string of around 30 in Chantilly.

Unfortunately, the dangers of relying on British railway services meant that Merienne was not on hand to see his latest success story take his turn in the ring, as he arrived at Yorton Farm a few minutes after Invictus Smart was bought by Highflyer Bloodstock on behalf of Robert Waley-Cohen for £200,000 - the second highest price raised at the Goffs UK December P2P Sale.

Only four days before the auction, Merienne had prepared the son of Masterstroke to win a hurdle at Fontainebleau on his racecourse debut.

"I was delighted with the result, he was a horse I really liked and I hope they have as much joy as I did with him as he is very nice to train in the morning," he says.

It is not the first time that a horse has left Merienne’s yard to join British or Irish trainers. He sold Gorki D’airy to Mullins at Tattersalls Cheltenham and offered Rockadenn, who ran in last year's Victor Ludorum at Haydock and was later bought privately to become a winner for Million In Mind and Paul Nicholls.

Hugo Merienne with his smart jumping prospect Margaret's LegacyCredit: Lgm

His season was a little slow to get going as he moved yards from Avilly to Chantilly in the spring, just as the first part of the Parisian jumps season was beginning, and it took a while for him to get a handle on the different gallops and to shake off a virus. Invictus Smart, who is out of a winning AQPS mare, certainly provided the early Christmas present.

"The end has been quite good, so I’m happy enough with it and we'll look forward to next season," he explained.

"Every year we try to come over to the UK with a horse. I don't think I have any this season for juveniles but I bought a yearling last year who might be able to come next year."

He continues: "I ran a good horse called Margaret’s Legacy at Kempton last season [sixth to Tritonic in the Adonis Juvenile Hurdle], but it was good ground and a fast, flat track, it maybe helped Flat horses more than jump horses. He was more of a chaser than a juvenile, who was sold and is going to Tim Vaughan. I think he will have a bright future on the other side of the Channel.

"I sold another one to Willie Mullins, Horantzau D’Airy, who won a bumper in Fontainebleau last year. I really liked that horse, I see he’s entered in a Grade 1 at Leopardstown after Christmas so hopefully they get lucky with him."

Should Horantzau D’Airy make an impact for Rich Ricci and Mullins, it will be one way of repaying the insight gained from a year spent at Closutton.

"It was great," says Merienne. "I was assistant for Guillaume Macaire then I worked for Willie. Even though we were working with different kinds of horses, younger with Macaire and older with Willie, I’d say 70 per cent of the way of training and thinking are similar. I learned a lot from them and I keep learning out of them as well.

"I was lucky to ride Vautour when he was at Macaire’s, and so to see him again back at Willie’s, and to see what he became, was great."

Much of French jumps racing focusses on the development of horses up to age four and Merienne is following the path set by his master tutor Macaire, whose exhaustive list of graduates includes the likes of Long Run, Silviniaco Conti, Vautour, Azertyuiop, Master Minded and Bristol De Mai.

The nephew of trainer Julien Merienne says the selling model is more by necessity than design, having worked his way up from an extremely small base.

Merienne rode the brilliant Vautour in his early French days

"We started four years ago with two horses, average Flat horses that I bought for €1,000 each, and thanks to the good prize money over here, they both took around €100,000 from racing that we used to buy young stock," he explains.

"We are trying to slowly expand our number of youngsters every year, to build up a solid team around us, staff, owners, breeders, agents and so on… and selling the good ones is a way to speed it up."

While the route to success for French-based trainers like Merienne will probably always revolve around being the first to source young talent from the fields, the dream is to eventually be able to keep more of them in his own stable for the longer-term.

For the moment, though, he insists he is enjoying the learning process.

"It’s great to see how every little change in the training has repercussions on the horse’s balance, or mind," he says.

"Horses don’t lie, and they help us to improve every year. I think the more you train the more you learn from your mistakes, and I hope at one point we will be having a training routine that will permit us to be competitive in the top races.

"Because getting a horse ready is not that hard, but to get it ready with the right timing for the big events is another story."

If Merienne maintains his sharp trajectory from just two horses to making himself known to some of the most powerful operators in the game, his own runners in Grade 1 races can only be a matter of time.

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