Generation Galop Meets in Deauville

Generation Galop held a public meeting in Deauville Sunday to present its candidates and ideas for the France Galop elections. The organization unveiled its candidates for two categories, breeders and owners, which were the Aga Khan’s Studs’s Georges Rimaud, and Christian de Villeneuve, an owner for 20 years and vice chairman of Clairefontaine Racecourse. Generation Galop also presented a growth strategy for French racing centered around five main areas: improvement of the image of racing; revitalizing ownership and encouraging investment; strengthening attractiveness and competitiveness of French racing; developing betting to revive finances; and modernization of management.

Rimaud and de Villeneuve both spoke at the meeting. Rimaud discussed how ruling bodies must be aware of the importance of breeding, and stressed the need to create a viable environment for young breeders. De Villenueve headed the betting section of the meeting, and discussed the need for racing to modernize and project a positive image in order to attract new bettors. He also laid out a six-point plan for increasing field sizes: adapting the race program to the number of horses in training; smoothing out opportunities to run throughout the year; creating mini-meetings; simplifying race conditions to make transitions easier; reinstating flagship races on weekends; putting in place racing secretary to optimize the number of runners in each race.