by Thomas Hedlund

Top trainer and driver Jean-Michel Bazire experienced another great winter meeting in Paris 2019/2020.

This week, Swedish harness racing media sulkysport.se reported a summary from the winter meeting and nothing much has changed since last year’s meeting.

Bazire noted 83 stable victories and his horses earned $4,158,753 from November until last weekend’s end of the massive race program in Paris. Bazire had the record regarding amounts of wins from 2018/2019 and this year he beat that by 12 stable victories. He also sat in the sulky behind 58 of the winners, which put him in second place behind Eric Raffin, who won 69 times in the sulky and 24 in the saddle.

“Our stable had a lot more horses to race this year and we can’t look back at any disappointments. Our team has had a great time, we have fun and that things reflects itself on the horses,” Bazire told letrot.com when the meeting was over.

Sébastien Guarato’s Face Time Bourbon became the best horse of the meeting with $800,000 in earnings and the Prix d’Amérique winner’s owner, Scuderia Bivans Srl, was best in that category.

Ready Cash dominated the stallion’s list with 43 wins and $3,070,285 in earnings which was far more than runner up stallion Prodigious, who noted $1,144,248 in earnings.

Winter meeting 2019/2020

Horses

Horse – Starts – Wins – Earnings in USD

Face Time Bourbon – 5 – 4 – $800,000
Davidson du Pont – 8 – 2 – $498,670
Bilibili – 5 – 3 – $476,489
Belina Josselyn – 8 – 2 – $372,319
Etoile de Bruyere – 6 – 1 – $292,246

Stallions

Horse – Starts – Wins – Earnings in USD

Ready Cash – 391 – 43 – $3,070,285
Prodigious – 224 – 18 – $1,144,248
Royal Dream – 144 – 28 – $949,021
Love You – 196 – 11 – $948,960
Niky– 149 – 9 – $893,726

Trainers

Trainer – Starts – Wins – Earnings in USD

Jean-Michel Bazire– 353 – 83 – $4,158,753
Sébastien Guarato– 232 – 22 – $2,193,333
Philippe Allaire– 133 – 23 – $1,497,993
Laurent Claude Abrivard– 169 – 23 – $1,356,996
Franck Leblanc– 336 – 21 – $1,344,446

Drivers

Driver – Starts – Wins – Earnings in USD

Eric Raffin– 384 – 69 – $2,687,165
Jean-Michel Bazire– 173 – 58 – $2,559,845
David Thomain– 319 – 37 – $1,541,367
Matthieu Abrivard– 349 – 35 – $733,709
Franck Nivard– 326 – 32 – $1,848,275

Set for Criterium de Vitesse

The $189,500 Criterium de Vitesse is scheduled at Hippodrome de la Cote d’Azur in Cagnes-sur-Mer in southern France on Sunday. Eleven trotters will gather around the beautiful French riviera track in the first big and prestigious mile race for the elite in Europe this season.

The big names from the winter meeting in Paris are absent, but 2019 Elitloppet winner Dijon is among those that will chase the right condition ahead of the big European circuit races that awaits later this spring.

Criterium de Vitesse

Horse – Driver

Bahia Quesnot – Stéphane Guelpa
Uza Josselyn – Pierre Vercruysse
Earl Simon – Franck Ouvrie
Vivid Wise As – Alessandro Gocciadoro
Billie de Montfort – Gabriele Gelormini
Delia du Pommereux – Franck Nivard
Dijon – Romain Derieux
Valko Jenilat – Paul-Philippe Ploquin
Looking Superb – Jean-Michel Bazire
Catherine’s Chevy – Yannick-Alain Briand
Sonia – René Legati