After handing over the reins of a famous family dynasty to the next generation, Freddy Head looks back on a brilliant career as trainer and jockey in this major interview
France: After six decades of rising before the cold light of dawn, you’d have thought Freddy Head would spend his first winter in retirement seeking the sun. One attractive option was for him to decamp to the family’s second home in the Bahamas to warm his bones.
But old habits die hard. Now 75, Head wintered instead at Chantilly, where he’d joined the weighing room as a fresh-faced teenage jockey in the mid-1960s, and where he called time after 25 years of training at the end of last year. It will take this scion of French racing royalty a while longer to reach for the pipe and slippers.
Only then will he dwell on his achievements, the most notable of which unfolded in the US. Having reached the summit in two professions, Head made history in 2008 when he became the first man to both ride and train winners at the Breeders’ Cup.
For now, however, Head remains absorbed by the twin pursuits of racing and breeding. It has become second nature since his great-grandfather, Willie Head Sr, moved from Britain to France more than 150 years ago.
Now the baton has passed to a fifth generation, namely Freddy’s son, Christopher – who recorded his first G1 success when Blue Rose Cen won the Prix Marcel Boussac – and his daughter, Victoria. They are already making waves.
Christopher started training in 2018, when his aunt Criquette – Freddy’s sister – retired after a fabulous training career. Victoria started last summer, which coincided with Freddy’s announcement that his own retirement was imminent. Seamless transitions are a common theme to the Heads.
Very proud
“They are both doing well and I am very proud of them,” Head says of his children. “Christopher had his first Group 1 winner last October, and Victoria had her first winner on March 1. It is fantastic to see them starting out for themselves, making their own way.”
So much so that Head’s patriarchal instincts kicked in. He watches his children from a discreet distance, his honed eye noting how they hone their horses. To this end he makes frequent morning visits to the Chantilly gallops, although he has made some concessions.
“I don’t have to wake up so early in the morning,” he laughs, “and I don’t have to keep looking at my watch. I still go racing in the afternoons – but only when the weather is good.”
His children will have to go some to uphold the family honour. Freddy won the Cravache d’Or as France’s champion jockey six times. He rode the winners of 28 French Classics and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe four times in addition to the 1,000 Guineas twice and 2,000 Guineas in Britain. He bestrode numerous champions, although fittingly, he lauded Miesque as “probably the best of them.”
Trained in France by Francois Boutin, Miesque was a Thoroughbred monster. It was she who announced Head to US racefans when the jockey steered her to back-to-back victories in the Breeders’ Cup Mile in 1987 and 1988.
Miesque was spectacular in the first of them, gunning through a narrow gap on rounding the home turn before exploding down the Hollywood Park stretch to shatter the track record by ⅗s. The look of exhilaration on Head’s face when he reached the wire was something to behold.
Special filly
“Miesque was a very special filly,” Head relates, his voice dropping an octave as he contemplates the daughter of Nureyev. “She had great speed; just a great racehorse. She was a champion at two (in France), three and four (both in Europe and the US) but she was a difficult ride. She needed a strong pace and when she didn’t get it she was a brute who pulled hard.
“That’s why she was so happy racing in the States,” he continues. “You knew there would be pace so you could get her in a good early position, and of course she had a fantastic turn of foot. Sometimes in Europe we got too far back because I had to hold her up, even if the pace was slow.”
By the time Miesque lined up for her follow-up attempt 12 months later she had won nine G1 races. This time she loitered towards the rear, with Head keeping her wide and out of trouble. The outcome was never in doubt once Head unleashed his partner at the top of the stretch, with Miesque drawing away by four lengths on the sodden Churchill Downs turf. “It was very easy for her,” Head reflects. “There wasn’t a moment’s trouble all the way round.”
Miesque’s record as the first back-to-back winner of the Breeders’ Cup Mile would survive for more than 20 years – until Head, by now training at Chantilly, saddled the redoubtable Goldikova to win her third Mile in 2010. The first two were gained under contrasting rides at Santa Anita, while the third came from a wide trip after she drew stall 10 of 11. Nevertheless, the burst of acceleration she summoned to overhaul five horses down the stretch was reminiscent of Miesque herself.
“Goldikova was like Miesque in that she loved the way races in the US are run,” Head recalls. “All three of her wins were special but the first one is the one you remember most. She blew the field away that time, and after that we always went with confidence.”
Their running styles aside, Head remembers the two fillies had their differences. “Miesque was faster and stronger,” he maintains.” She had more speed than Goldikova, who took a bit of time to reach her peak.
Goldikova stayed in training until she was six, when her attempt at a fourth consecutive Breeders’ Cup Mile triumph ran aground in 2011. By then, however, Goldikova had succumbed to the lure of paddock life.
“She wasn’t at her best but the Wertheimers [owner-breeders] loved going to the US,” Head reflects. “They wanted her to run one more time and she ran well to finish third even though she got tired at the end.”
An extraordinary horse
Nevertheless, Goldikova retired sound with a European record of 14 G1 triumphs to her name – all of them under regular rider Olivier Peslier. “She was an extraordinary horse,” Head muses. “She never had a physical problem, not even a splint. That is so rare for a horse that races until it is six.
“And I must say that Olivier Peslier rode Goldikova beautifully,” Head goes on. “He made the difference between winning and losing on more than one occasion. She was dying in front when she won the Queen Anne Stakes and Olivier kept her going with just hands and heels. He didn’t even show her the whip even though it was extremely close at the end.” Let the record she that she repelled Paco Boy only by a neck in that 2010 contest at Royal Ascot.
Neither Goldikova nor Miesque ever contested the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe but three of Head’s four winners of that race were gained aboard fillies: San San (1972), Ivanjica (1976) and Three Troikas (1979). The only colt that Head rode to win Europe’s signature contest was Bon Mot in 1966. At the time he was 19 and his grandfather William, who trained Bon Mot, was 80.
Head remembers Bon Mot as “a funny horse, a very hard horse who loved soft ground and it poured down on Arc day, which made the difference”. It was the first of three “family” Arc triumphs: Ivanjica was trained by Freddy’s father, Alec, while Three Troikas hailed from his sister Criquette’s stable. Furthermore, Three Troikas was owned by Alec’s wife, Ghislaine.
“Three Troikas was another great racehorse,” Head says of the filly by crack sire Lyphard, whom Alec had bought as a yearling for Germaine Wertheimer. “She was brilliant on the day she won her Arc. I entered the home straight full of running and as soon as I pulled her to the outside I knew she would win. As a family in racing, you don’t get better days than that.”
Head retired from the saddle in 1997 and immediately turned to training. It took him time to make a successful transition, a predicament lent added poignancy by the achievements of his sister Criquette’s flourishing stable. In Freddy’s debut season Criquette won the Poule d’Essai des Pouliches for the third time in four years with Always Loyal.
Indeed, it took Freddy nearly nine years to saddle his first G1 winner. That was Marchand D’Or, who sprang a surprise in the 2006 Prix Maurice de Gheest at odds of 13-1. The floodgates duly opened, although Head, having struggled to make an impact, will always acknowledge the debt he owes Marchand D’Or for propelling him into the major league.
A big heart
“That horse was something very special to me,” Head reflects. “He had many different problems with his feet and legs but he had such a big heart. He was very courageous, and he became the first horse in France to win the same Group 1 race [Prix Maurice de Gheest] three years in a row.
Marchand D’Or also won the Prix de l’Abbaye and the July Cup, a race I had won as a jockey on Anabaa in 1996 just before I retired. So that was a big thrill. I always enjoyed having a big winner in England, where my family [on his father’s side] originally came from – many of them are buried in the cemetery at Newmarket. And after that, more good horses came my way.”
Head goes on to recall other big horses whom he handled later in his training career, headed by Solow, whose G1 spree in 2015 featured the Dubai Turf, Prix d’Ispahan, Queen Anne Stakes, Sussex Stakes and Queen Elizabeth II Stakes.
“Solow had a tremendous season in 2015, when he won all six of his races,” he says. “And let’s not forget Moonlight Cloud.”
That would be hard to do. Moonlight Cloud was another filly from the top drawer. Like Marchand D’Or, she won the Prix Maurice de Gheest in three consecutive years from 2011. She also annexed the Prix Jacques le Marois and Prix Moulin, although Head was distraught when she came up short in a photo-finish with the Australian sprint sensation, Black Caviar, in the 2012 Diamond Jubilee Stakes.
“That was a very sad day,” Head relates. “Moonlight Cloud never travelled well when she left France. I was sure she would win when we took her to Hong Kong (in 2013) but she ran badly.”
Moonlight Cloud’s owner-breeder, George Strawbridge, was a mainstay of Head’s stable for many years, and Strawbridge’s support of the family now extends to Freddy’s daughter. “Victoria is quite fortunate,” Head says. “She took over some horses I had for George when I retired last year.”
Among them is Moonlight Cloud’s three-year-old daughter Partly Cloudy, who has been placed twice from as many outings for Victoria this season.
It's as well Victoria has such influential patrons on the books, since the Head family’s Haras du Quesnay, which Alec Head developed into one of Europe’s foremost nurseries, was sold towards the end of last year. There will be no more homebred produce to support the family’s training endeavours, although Freddy has kept a small handful of mares to breed from himself. For the time being, tending to their requirements and keeping an eye on his children leaves him feeling content in retirement.
No regrets
“It has been a big change in my life,” he says. “I have been around horses every day for 60 years but I have no regrets at all. I am very happy right now. I hope it stays that way, and that I won’t get bored.”
He is certainly not short of career highlights for his ventures down memory lane, having been one of the few top-class riders to make similar headlines as a trainer. So from which of the two professions did he get most fulfilment?
“That’s tough to say,” he offers, “but what I know is that I have been very lucky. Riding is exciting when you are young; being a jockey is a wonderful life. I always dreamt I would be a jockey from the time when I went racing with my family when I was 10. It was my whole life. And then, when I had been riding for many years, I wanted to become a trainer.
“Training is very different to being a jockey,” he continues. “As a trainer you have to put up a lot of your own money, which you don’t have to do as a jockey. You have all the staff to worry about and it is stressful, especially if you have big owners who demand success. At the same time, I loved training too.”
One day, when his children are unawares, Head will slip quietly away and embark on extensive overseas travel. He did so frequently in his professional life without having the opportunity to absorb what he was seeing. This time he will take it nice and slow. And he will smell the roses en route.
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