CLEMENT ISSUE 29_Jerkins feature.qxd 25/07/2013 16:18 Page 1
PROFILE
RELATIVE VALUES
The Clements
The Atlantic Ocean separates the Clement brothers and the idyllic tracks they race at this summer, but they’re never far apart: Christophe at Saratoga; his older brother Nicolas at Deauville. WORDS: BILL HELLER PHOTOS: CHARLOTTE CLEMENT, VALERIE CLEMENT, APRH/PAUL BERTRAND
“I
’VE always been very close to him,” Christophe said. “We like the same things. We have the same passion.” Nicolas said, “We get on really well. We exchange ideas.” And they share special moments. Christophe, then working as an assistant to trainer Luca Cumani in England, was at Longchamp when Nicolas, then 26 years old, won the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe with Saumarez in 1990. The very next year, Christophe won his first race, at Belmont Park with the first horse he saddled, Spectaculaire, a horse Nicolas sent to him. “I was very proud to send him his first winner,” Nicolas said. “He was very emotional. The owner was one of my father’s owners, Anthony Speelman.” Their dad, Miguel, was Basque and became one of the leading trainers in France, racing horses from his training yard in Chantilly. Nicolas and Christophe literally grew up in the business of training Thoroughbreds. But
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