A thick layer of sugary icing was spread on the cake this week in one of racing’s great revival stories. Christophe Lemaire, the one-time leading rider in France who left his home country six years ago because his supply of mounts had dried up, is now the #1 jockey in the world.
He’s joint #1 actually - alongside Frankie Dettori - but there’s every chance the 41-year-old Frenchman will have the top spot to himself in the coming weeks as his adopted homeland, Japan, features a programme of Graded races over the next two months (Group and Graded races are what count in the TRC Global Rankings) and Lemaire has been champion jockey in the world’s richest racing nation for the past four seasons.
Lemaire had been enjoying a stellar career in France with 42 G1 victories already to his credit when things went wrong in 2014. From 2003 to 2012, he rode 24 G1 winners there alone, as well as nine in Britain, five in Japan, two in the U.S., one in the UAE and one in Australia - the Melbourne Cup, no less, on Dunedin for French trainer Mikel Delzangles.
From 2009 to 2013, he occupied one of the most prestigious positions in world racing - as first jockey to the Aga Khan. But, when that contract was not renewed (His Highness reverted to the previous incumbent, Christophe Soumillon, at the end of 2013), Lemaire found his fortunes in freefall.
As John Gilmore wrote in this TRC article two years later:
Certain trainers used him from time to time ... but a top contract with a leading owner was not forthcoming. Even a chance ride on Spiritjim, trained by Pascal Bary to win the G1 Grand Prix de Saint Cloud that June, when Lemaire timed his finish to perfection, didn’t change his fortunes.
“This is part of the sport you have to accept,” Lemaire told me this week [in 2016]. “There are highs and lows and nothing is ever sure. When I left for winter racing in Japan at the end of 2014, I was a bit down. People lose interest, you’re not in favour. When it happens, you begin to have doubts about your ability. But it was my duty. I had to do something in the interest of my family.”
Just when Lemaire needed a break, one came along. For the previous 13 years, he had ridden on a regular winter stint in Japan on a temporary three-month licence. At the end of 2014, [he was offered a full-time licence by the Japan Racing Association]. “It was a great opportunity and adventure to move to Japan, and experience another culture, for my family, with which my wife Barbara was in full agreement, especially as I had no real prospect of a contract with top owners in France.”
Lemaire and his family quickly adapted to life in racing-mad Japan, and very soon he became a superstar there. He finished fourth in the JRA championship in 2015, second the following year, and has been champion every year since. And he has excelled in the biggest races. His Japanese G1 total stands at 35, eight of them in 2020 (the same as Dettori), including four in the last two months (Dettori has had just one in that period).
Highlight of Lemaire's career so far has been his association with the great Almond Eye, year-end world #1 in the TRC standings. Lemaire has ridden the now-retired daughter of Lord Kanaloa in every one of her nine G1 wins.
He is the ninth jockey to have a stint as world #1 since our figures began in 2014. The others are:
Nash Rawiller (Australia)
Joseph O’Brien (Ireland)
John Velazquez (U.S.)
Christophe Soumillon (France)
Hugh Bowman (Australia)
Javier Castellano (U.S.)
Ryan Moore (GB)
Frankie Dettori (GB)