16-05-2025
How Louisa Carberry traded Badminton dream to rule France's ‘Gold Cup'
In Louisa Carberry's dreams she would have been picking up the Badminton Trials Trophy last weekend. Instead, life took her in a different direction and from her French base at Senonnes, she is preparing the appositely named elegant giant, Gran Diose, for the defence of his Grand Steeple-Chase de Paris title at Auteuil on Sunday.
The race, first run in 1874 over 3¾ miles and 23 obstacles, is France's equivalent of the Cheltenham Gold Cup but is worth more (€900,000). It is the third-most valuable jump race in the world after the Grand National and Japan's Nakayama Grand Jump.
It remains etched into British steeplechasing's distant memory for the exploits of Mandarin, the last Britain-based winner, when Fred Winter rode the 11-year-old with a broken bit and, therefore, no steering or brakes from the fourth fence onwards to record a celebrated victory in 1962.
Carberry, 40, already has her own slice of Grand Steeple history as its most successful female trainer, having won it twice with Docteur de Ballon in 2020 and 2021, and again last year with Gran Diose. Ironically, until Isabelle Pacault won it with Carriacou in 2019 it had never been won by a female trainer; now five of the past six runnings have gone their way.
Yet in her youth, eventing was her passion. Though she competed at Gatcombe, Blenheim and Chatsworth, Badminton, close to her home, was the itch she was never able to scratch. 'I entered it twice,' she says. 'The first time I got balloted out, the second time the horse broke down before he got there.'
But thoroughbreds were never too far away in the background. Her uncle, Kim Brassey, had trained in Lambourn and her paternal grandmother was a massive racing fan and named all her cockerels after jockeys. 'I remember going out to feed Lester Piggott and Greville Starkey,' she recalls.
In her gap year she went to ride out for Henrietta Knight and it flicked a switch. 'When I was 24, I did the sums and realised eventing without financial backing would be a difficult road,' she says. 'Why I thought racing would be any easier I have no idea! I knew I'd never be able to afford to set up in Britain so I went to France.
'It was close enough to home if it all went wrong, but the luckiest thing was landing up in Alain de Royer-Dupré's yard in Chantilly. I ended up as a stable lad – I needed to learn from the bottom up. If you had your eyes and ears open and observed, you learnt.'
At the same time Philip Carberry, a member of the Irish racing dynasty (son of Tommy, one of the few people to ride and train a Grand National winner, sister to Paul and Nina), was also living in Chantilly. He won a Champion Hurdle on Sublimity and, in France, two Grand Steeples on Princesse D'Anjou in 2006 and 2008.
On the day the mare retired following her last run in the race in 2010, he and Louisa met in the bar after racing at Auteuil. Two years later his main owner sold his entire string and, by then a married couple, they decided to have a go at training. They took half a barn in Senonnes before buying their own 40-acre stable, which allows them to turn their 40 horses out daily and suits their style of training horses for a long career rather than a quick sale, the modus operandi of a lot of French jump trainers.
At first glance Senonnes appears to be in the middle of nowhere (on a culinary map of France it is 20 minutes from Brie and in the Rosé d'Anjou wine-growing area). Its church could comfortably fit its population of humans and most of its horses; it has a racecourse, but beyond the gallops its facilities extend only to a tack shop. The four nearest cities (Nantes, Rennes, Laval and Angers) are an hour away. But it was set up as a racing centre at the turn of this century because there are 100 racecourses within a two-hour drive.
It was not long before Docteur de Ballon arrived. 'We were just in the right place at the right time for him,' she recalls. 'We took two moderate horses for the owner-breeder when he had to move them from Chantilly. He arrived as a newly broken three-year-old which they couldn't sell. He was small and chestnut by Doctor Dino [now a very popular jumping sire] who hadn't had a runner at that stage.'
The first year he ran in the Grand Steeple he was still going well when he fell at the 20th. 'I cried all the way home,' admits Carberry. 'I was young, we didn't have many horses, it would have been a career-changing race. I thought that was our one chance gone. My family were telling me not to worry, we'd get another go, but I told them they just didn't understand – that was our chance. I was such a spoilt brat!'
Fate intervened, this time in her favour. Docteur de Ballon was stood in a field recovering from a tendon injury the following May when the 2020 race should have been run, but Covid meant it was delayed six months until the autumn.
'It was a huge stroke of luck and the horse aced it. Philip used to ride him out every day. His collarbone was in three pieces from his time as a jockey, but he put off the operation until Docteur de Ballon retired. Everything we've got now is thanks to him. We owe him a huge amount.
'The wins gave us the confidence we could do it, but I'm still going into this week full of trepidation. People go on about three or four favourites, but we all know a 50-1 shot can win it and I don't feel smug when one of them drops out because I know it could be us next.'
In contrast to Docteur de Ballon, Gran Diose is 18 hands, dark brown. 'He's timid, very shy and would apologise before he bit you,' she says. 'He has one massive action, a long relentless stride. You're a passenger, not a driver, on him. Docteur, on the other hand, had a huge sprint finish.'
She rides Gran Diose out every day. 'It's about knowing what buttons to push and what not to push. We know each other very well.'
France is now home for this wing of the Carberry family. 'I'm England 'til I die,' she says. 'I love France but I miss British food. I dream of spaghetti hoops on toast and pub grub and they don't have Galaxy chocolate here! But we'd never have got this opportunity at home. We had nothing except Philip's achievements as a jockey when we started so had nothing to lose. Sometimes in life you just have to grab the nettle.'
