French rider Vincent Cheminaud giving it a go in U.S.
NEW ORLEANS – The French jockey Vincent Cheminaud has ridden two horses in the United States, finishing unplaced in a turf stakes race at Belmont Park and winning the Grade 1 Sword Dancer at Saratoga aboard Flintshire in 2015.
Soon, if all goes to plan, Cheminaud will be riding plenty of American races. Cheminaud arrived in New Orleans earlier this week, plans to work some horses here this weekend, and, according to his agent, Tim Hanisch, will start looking for race mounts next week at Fair Grounds.
“It’s been a dream for me to come to this country,” Cheminaud said Thursday morning.
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Still, the overseas move, as Cheminaud, 28, acknowledged, comes as his French riding career has flagged. Cheminaud rode 102 winners in 2014 but was down to just 40 during the 2021 French flat-racing season.
“It’s been some bad days for me,” said Cheminaud, who speaks rudimentary conversational English.
Cheminaud’s father was a jump-racing rider, and Cheminaud himself began his career as a teenager as a steeplechase jockey, becoming a champion in France. Early in 2015, he began a fruitful relationship with the great French trainer Andre Fabre, who that summer put Cheminaud on New Bay to win the Prix du Jockey Club, the French Derby. Fabre provided steady support for several years while Cheminaud broadened his horizons. He rode two months in Japan during the winter lull in European flat racing in 2016-17 and 2017-18 and had a two-month stint in Hong Kong early in 2016.
But with his career gone somewhat stale in France, Cheminaud decided to shake things up in 2022.
“I like the racing here, and sometimes it’s good to make a change,” he said.
Cheminaud’s bread and butter surely will be turf racing, though he did ride dirt races in Japan and Hong Kong. Hanisch said his plan is to start Cheminaud off at Fair Grounds and bring him to the Kentucky circuit when this meet ends in late March.