“Ace Impact is a crack,” admits his trainer, Jean-Claude Rouget. His resident will be the favorite of the next Arc de Triomphe

2023-08-19 05:24:11

His relationship with Tony Parker, Ace Impact, the favorite for the next Arc de Triomphe, his training structures, his past as a sportsman, the chances of Eliyass in Sunday’s quinté at Deauville. Jean-Claude Rouget confides frankly.

Let’s start with the hot news. A word about your resident at the start of the Sunday quinté?

JEAN-CLAUDE ROUGET. Eliyass is admirably consistent. He discovers the handicaps this Sunday, but this race looks more like a good race with conditions of aged horses than a handicap. Lately my boarder has run very well. It was attacked early by its colored companion, but it knew how to be courageous until the end without being able to resist Integrant, which it finds with a more favorable weight situation this time.

We are starting the second part of the meeting in Deauville, what is your view of that of your workforce?

Relatively mixed. I haven’t won many races, but my boarders have rarely been disappointing. When I trained exclusively in Pau (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), I kept horses, from June, exclusively to race in August on the Normandy coast. Now with two divisions and part of my workforce based in Deauville (Calvados), I am joining the Paris movement. And the month of August in Deauville is a month like any other. Apart from a few targets, we run the “all comers”. Deauville no longer represents a goal as such for many of my residents, but more a logical continuation in the season.

You now have two poles, one in Pau and one in Deauville. An experience you had tried in the past before retracing your steps.

Yes. Almost 25 years ago, I opened a branch in Paris, but it was too complicated to orchestrate. Especially by the size of it, because at that time, it was limited to 25 boarders. With that size, there could only be downsides. Now there are no size limits. With 80 horses in Deauville, it’s very fluid as an organization and it saves a lot of kilometers to cover for many of my horses and my staff.

The Arc is a race that smiles on you. How did you judge the recent return of Ace Impact, the current favorite of the bookmakers?

Its recent success in the Prix Guillaume d’Ornano is obviously very satisfying, especially since it is never easy to get them ready again after having slowed them down in their preparation. I am relieved by this magnificent resumption of contact. I was anxious because I had already experienced disappointments in this same context with Brametot in the past. I succeeded with Almanzor and we succeed with Ace Impact, a formidable colt. It’s simply a crack! The 2,400 m do not worry me too much. I just hope there won’t be too much rain. I’m not saying that would bother him, but I like to see the horses evolve on good ground. I won the Arc with a 4-year-old named Sottsass who won the Jockey Club in record time and the following year the Arc on heavy ground. But Vadeni’s recent retirement from sport is a new illustration of the difficulty of going from 3 to 4 years old with very high level foals. We do not measure the amount of effort that the very high level requires for horses that are still very young.

Does the fact of having been an athlete help you on a daily basis in your job?

Having been a middle-distance runner benefits me on a daily basis. I see my residents as high-level athletes. Every day, I consider them as men. The middle distance is very close to the equestrian effort. I had Tony Parker as a client. Having sports owners is easier. They quickly understand things. We don’t need to talk for long…