It is “the” meeting of the year for flat racing: like every first Sunday in October since 1920, the Parisian Longchamp racecourse hosts the queen of the galloping event. In front of 35,000 spectators, the best jockeys on the planet will compete over 2,400 meters (start at 4:20 p.m.). Less than two minutes and thirty seconds will be enough to choose the winner of this 103rd edition.
Double winner (2003 and 2008) of the Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, Christophe Soumillon will ride an outsider, the Irish horse Continuous. At 43, the man with ten golden whips (best jockey of the year) and nearly 4,000 professional victories confides that records no longer interest him. The native of Schaerbeek, near Brussels, wants above all to have fun racing. He also defends his profession, too rarely seen as a sport in its own right even though the analogies are numerous and constantly recur in his responses.
The JDD. Do you consider yourself a top athlete?
Christophe Soumillon. Quite. We train daily to work on cardio, core strength and flexibility. Riding a 450 kilo horse requires intense physical effort. If you want the mind to follow, you have to feel strong. Like any high-level athlete, we have preparation sessions depending on the deadlines. The Arc de Triomphe is the most important weekend of the year. Then, we have lots of big races abroad. Fifteen days after the Arc, we have a big weekend in England before going to Japan, Hong Kong and the United States.
What is your typical day?
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We wake up between 5:30 a.m. and 6:30 a.m., several times a week to go and “work” the horses at the training centers. Then we go home, take a good shower and go do our sport. I vary. I enjoy running and cycling. When traveling, sometimes I have no choice, I go to the gym, when I prefer to be outside. For example, I love doing high altitude sessions in the mountains to get red blood cells in my blood.
“You must constantly arrive with the desire to perform”
I also play golf to clear my head and do a little swimming. Between 10:30 and 11 a.m., I finished my sport. You then have to prepare to go to the racecourse. Several times a week, a physiotherapist or masseuse restores our muscles and the rest of the body. Generally, our first races start around 1-1:30 p.m. And there, we go on to four, five races, sometimes up to seven or eight.
We imagine that it is very physically and nervously intense to do so many races in one day…
You have to be mentally able to accept defeats in order to leave half an hour later for a new race and get back into “winning” mode. It’s like a ping-pong player. Just because he lost two sets in a row doesn’t mean he can’t win the third.
You must constantly arrive with the desire to perform well and be smiling. Because owners and trainers don’t really look at what happened in previous races. For them, it is important that we show up with their horse in the best possible condition each time.
Exterior, rope, straight line: the vocabulary of horse racing is reminiscent of motorsport…
Yes, but we don’t need to brake as hard before a turn! And when you go racing, unlike a car driver, you have two brains to manage, four lungs and two hearts. We can also compare it with cycling: we run in a peloton. Staying hidden in the middle of a peloton at 50 or 60 km/hour, especially when there is a headwind, allows us to store energy so that the horse is able, at the end of the event, to to sprint hard.
As in cycling, the risk of falling is great. How do you deal with accidents?
I try to forget them quickly. It’s rare that I’ve been seriously hurt, although I’ve had some broken bones and spent some time in the hospital. Mentally, my accidents did not prevent me from coming back each time, without being afraid. I watched a documentary about Moto GP riders [Même pas mal par Louis Rossi et Amandine Morhaïm, disponible sur MyCanal, NDLR]. It’s the same, falling is part of their job. What shocked me the most was when I saw very serious accidents where some of my colleagues ended badly.
Let’s return to the Arc de Triomphe; tell us about the atmosphere…
A few days before the event, everyone is talking about it in the newspapers and on the Internet. This atmosphere is an indescribable pleasure. Everyone has their own prediction: what is their favorite horse? I also really appreciate the parade to get to the start, when we pass in front of the stands and feel the emotion of the public. It reminds me of athletics, with all the runners side by side, ready to fight, trying to take the energy from the spectators. Depending on how lucky you are, you can ride horses that are favorites or underdogs.
“There is nothing more enjoyable than riding a young horse and feeling something extraordinary in him”
And it’s not at all the same feeling when you ride the big favorite! We are expected at the turning point, a bit like when Teddy Riner made his match for the gold medal at the Paris Games. Everyone wants him to win. Unfortunately, sometimes we cannot manage the course as we wish, because the draw does not give us a good rope number [il a hérité cette année d’un mauvais « couloir » : le 14].
At 43, what record are you still aiming for?
Records take a lot of effort and I’m not convinced they’ve made me any happier in my life. Today, what gives me pleasure is arriving at the races in great physical and mental shape, to ride for people who trust me. Yves Saint-Martin’s record [15 Cravaches d’or entre 1960 et 1983]I won’t beat him. It was never a goal, even if at one time, by winning the Golden Whip, some people thought about it. As for winning one more Arc de Triomphe, I’m obviously not going to spit on it. Lanfranco Dettori has the record. He will be very hard to beat. [l’Italien a gagné six fois l’Arc].
What is most important to you?
Work every day and have the chance to come across a young horse who will be a future star. This is the ultimate goal. There is nothing more enjoyable than riding a young horse and feeling something extraordinary in him. This is undoubtedly what great football players may have felt when they became a selector or coach: having a very talented young person in their hands and giving him the best advice to bring him to the highest level.
There is nothing more beautiful than what I experienced with Zarkava and Dalakhani, the two best horses I have ridden. This happens once every ten or fifteen years. If I could discover a nugget one last time before the end of my career, I would be delighted.
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