Arnaud Delacour

Born: April 7, 1975 | Birthplace: Lisieux, France | Residence: Elkton, MD

First Win: Country Lyric, Pimlico | Started Training: 2013, Pimlico

Circuit: Tampa Bay Downs, Keeneland, Laurel, Delaware Park, Kentucky Downs, Pimlico

Teamwork is essential to Delacour’s ongoing success. He and his wife Leigh, a trainer from 2007-2013, employ four exercise riders, including assistant trainer Moises Nava, and Delacour takes care in fitting each rider to the horses they best fit. In addition to binoculars and his stopwatch, Delacour employs a two-way radio to communicate with his riders during workouts, using it to apprise them of fractional times during a work. That level of preparation has helped Delacour emerge as a consistent winner at numerous racetracks. In 2016, Delacour won four graded stakes with Green Lantern Stables homebred A. P. Indian, including a pair of Grade I races at Saratoga. A. P. Indian was an Eclipse Award finalist for Outstanding Sprinter.

Delacour won his third career Grade I in the 2020 Belmont Oaks Invitational Stakes with Magic Attitude, owned by major client Lael Stables. Delacour and Lael Stables, owned and operated by Roy and Gretchen Jackson, have teamed to win a variety of major races in recent years, including back-toback editions of the Grade III Lambholm South Endeavour Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs with Hawksmoor in 2019 and Jehozacat in 2020. In 2018 at Churchill Downs, Delacour came within an eyelash of capturing his first Breeders’ Cup victory when 4-year-old filly Chalon was caught by Shamrock Rose in the final jumps of the Filly and Mare Sprint. The Delacour-trained Divining Rod, owned by Lael Stables, finished second in the 2015 Grade III Sam F. Davis Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs and third in the Grade II Tampa Bay Derby, then was third in the Xpressbet.com Preakness behind Triple Crown winner American Pharoah. The Delacours train their horses at Fair Hill Training Center in Maryland during the summer, enabling them to ship to a variety of mid-Atlantic and Northeast tracks. During the Tampa Bay Downs meeting, they keep a string of horses at Classic Mile Park Training Complex in Ocala.