Christophe Lemaire has had it happen to him a few times in Bali, and while holidaying in Japan.
Australian tourists will strike up a conversation with him and tell him he is mad if he doesn’t visit.
French jockey Christophe Lemaire takes in the Sydney sun ahead of The Championships.Credit: Louise Kennerley
“It’s happened more than once when Australian tourists will say, ‘you need to come to Melbourne, you’ll love it there’,” Lemaire says, as he breaks into a grin.
“They’ll ask me, ‘what do you do?’, I tell them I’m a jockey, and they’ll follow it up by saying, ‘you have to come, we’ve got a race called the Melbourne Cup’.
“That’s when I tell them, ‘I know, I’ve won it’.
“When you tell them about Dunaden in 2011, they get on their phones and Google, realise it’s actually me, then get their family and friends and whoever else is sitting around to jump in for a selfie. It’s nice.”
Queen Elizabeth hope Rousham Park and jockey Christophe Lemaire at Canterbury on Wednesday.Credit: Janie Barrett/SMH
Just as he proved an instant hit at Flemington more than 14 years ago on Dunaden, Lemaire is hoping to do likewise when he rides in Sydney for the first time in his career on Saturday.
The 45-year-old Frenchman, regarded as one of the finest riders in the world, has cleared his hectic schedule in Japan where he has been based for the past 10 years, to ride their local hope Rousham Park.
Mighty trainer Chris Waller’s mightier mare Via Sistina is the raging favourite in the $5m Queen Elizabeth Stakes (2000m) at Randwick.
But Lemaire has form when it comes to crashing an Australian big-race party.
‘They then get their family and friends and whoever else is sitting around to jump in for a selfie. It’s nice.’
Christophe Lemaire on Australians hearing about his Melbourne Cup win
The beauty of horse racing at this time of year is not only the outstanding thoroughbreds ready to perform at their best but also the characters and talent that gather from all parts of the globe.
Lemaire has been in town since Tuesday, checked on Rousham Park at Canterbury racecourse Wednesday morning, visited Taronga Zoo and the city’s brilliant beaches in the eastern suburbs on Thursday, and booked a visit to the Opera House, complete with a French-speaking guide, on Friday.
He took time out with this masthead on a sunny but smoky Friday morning where he spoke about growing up in France, being fluent in English, French, Japanese and Spanish, his love for Paris Saint-Germain, being friends with French soccer great Luis Fernandez, and why he was destined to be a jockey.
His father, Patrice, won nearly 500 races as a jumps jockey, and the family, including his mother, Marie, and younger twin sisters, Maud and Laure, lived opposite a horse-training facility opposite Chantilly.
Christophe Lemaire (yellow and blue silks) wins the 2011 Melbourne Cup on Dunaden.Credit: Paul Rovere
He dreamed of being a jockey and winning races. Instead of plastering his walls with posters of pop stars, sports stars and models, Lemaire went to sleep staring at the ceiling that was covered with photos of champion horse Carnegie, a Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner, and jockeys like Frankie Dettori and Thierry Jarnet.
Lemaire will never forget his first winner, which happened in 1997 in Paris on a horse called No Devil. He was only an amateur at the time, and not paid for his services.
“I rode as an amateur on weekends while still going to school, I rode against doctors and truck drivers, and I’m glad I did because all it did was confirm to me that riding was what I was meant to do – there was never a ‘plan B’,” Lemaire said.
Lemaire spent a short time riding in Madrid, four months in India, before riding in places as far flung as Martinique, before basing himself in Japan.
Christophe Lemaire at Canterbury Park.Credit: Janie Barrett
Japan produces good cars, fast trains, and even faster horses. Lemaire rates Japanese champion Almond Eye his favourite horse, Equinox the best, and French horse Divine Proportions the fastest.
On the eve of the Melbourne Cup, Lemaire boarded a plane from Japan on the Monday, unsure if Dunaden’s regular rider, Craig Williams, was going to be successful in having a careless riding suspension overturned. Had Williams succeeded, Lemaire was content with watching the race live.
The late John Marshall, a Cup-winning jockey, walked the Flemington track with Lemaire, and told him how he needed to get close to the fence when the field jumped, to not get too wide heading into the first turn, to get his horse to relax down the back straight, start spotting horses that looked to be travelling well into the deceptively long turn into the straight, then let your horse go at the clock tower, 150m from home.
“Had I painted a line on the grass after walking the track with John that day, I followed that [imaginary] line the next day and won, [albeit] by the smallest margin,” Lemaire said.
Williams showed his class by joining the celebrations that night with Lemaire and Dunaden’s owners, including a young Sheikh Fahad.
Lemaire was spotted by a few locals while waiting to check-in at the airport the next afternoon, and received a round of applause.
“For about 24 hours, I felt like Brad Pitt,” he said.
As for Saturday, and stealing the show on Rousham Park, Lemaire was quietly confident. The six-year-old horse ran second in the famous Breeders Cup in America in November, but then ran poorly in Japan before Christmas.
Lemaire has ridden the horse ten times and never finished worse than third.
“Rousham Park is a tough horse, has nice acceleration, he’s quite big and a little bit leggy, which is why he has a big stride,” Lemaire said.
“He’s very genuine, the trip will be perfect for him, and if the pace is decent, he’s a good chance to win.”
Lemaire knows if he can win the Queen Elizabeth Stakes, he will one day tell his grandkids about the day he won his only race ride in Sydney. And the tourists in Bali.
