Jul 1 Jul 1 The definitive profile of Criquette Head-Maarek Webmaster PROFILE CLICK ON IMAGE TO READ ARTICLETHIS ARTICLE FIRST APPEARED IN EUROPEAN TRAINER - ISSUE 46
![SIMPLY CRIQUETTE The three-storey white block structure patterned with red bricks on Avenue du General Leclerc in Chantilly, in the Parisian basin of France, is partly shielded from street view by a brick-and-wrought- iron privacy fence. During working hours, a line of modest cars is parked against the wall on crumbled pavement. There’s no visible sign identifying this as Écurie Christiane Head, headquarters of one of the most successful trainers of all time and home to the reigning Arc winner. C WORDS: FRANCES J KARON PHOTOS: ANNE-ARmEllE lANglOiS HRISTIANE “Criquette” Head-Maarek recalls her first meeting with the horse who would secure her a place in history with a Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe win. The bay filly was about a day or two old at the time, and Head-Maarek says, “I said to Papa, ‘I’ve seen the most beautiful foal that you can imagine.’” Her papa, Alec Head, could certainly imagine a beautiful foal, or if not a beautiful one, then certainly a fast one. By his retirement at the end of 1983, he had trained the winners of four Arcs, plus the Poule d’Essai des Poulains (three), Poule d’Essai des Pouliches (two), Prix du Jockey Club (three), Prix Diane (two) and one each of the Epsom Derby, 2,000 Guineas, and 1,000 Guineas. Alec’s father Willie, who settled in France from Great Britain and was the son of a horse trainer, had had some good ones of his own, winning two Arcs and two Jockey Clubs. Willie Head’s first Arc winner, Le Paillon, won in 1947, a year before his granddaughter Criquette was born. She was nearly four in 1952 when Alec won his first Arc, with the Aga Khan’s Nuccio. Of her own future Arc winner, after their first meeting, “I followed the filly,” says Head- Maarek. “I was in love with her.” She visited Comte Roland de Chambure’s Haras d’Etreham – where the filly was born and raised – often, and was told, “Oh, that filly, she’s very difficult. She’s always swishing her tail.” Undeterred, when Head-Maarek learned that the horse was to go through the ring at the Houghton yearling sale at Tattersalls, she told a client she would buy her if she didn’t make a “silly price.” “It’s true,” the trainer says. “She was swishing her tail all the time. But she was lovely. She had everything that my dad told me to look for in a horse. She had a beautiful shoulder with a very deep chest and a good hind leg, and she was beautiful. She was walking like something good. She had a lot of class, that filly.” Without telling her father or de Chambure – the filly’s consignor as well as being Head’s partner in the Societe Aland partnership – Head-Maarek bought the Lyphard daughter through agent BBA Ireland for 41,000 guineas on behalf of a Monsieur Lazard, a relation of the Wertheimer family matriarch Germaine. But there was a problem: “Papa came to me and said, ‘I want that filly.’” She rang her client and told him of her dilemma. He replied, “You know, Criquette, always give preference to your dad. Buy me anything else.” She didn’t find another yearling she liked enough to purchase for Monsieur Lazard. She didn’t know it yet, but Head-Maarek had already secured perhaps the best racehorse in the sale anyway. In the haze of a spring drizzle, first lot is readied to go out. Head-Maarek is zipped up in a dark blue coat, wearing blue jeans and a dark-coloured wide-brimmed hat. She’s entertaining a group of students peering at the back end of a bay horse in a box midway down one side of the yard. Head lad Pascal Galoche leads the horse out, tacked up in a dark blue rug with beige trim and a beige “CH” under another, plain brown blanket and in dark blue front polo wraps. There’s no mystery as to who this is, even before Head- Maarek identifies her as Treve, last year’s Arc heroine and the most accomplished of the 80 horses in the yard. Everyone follows on foot as premier lot exits through the back gate onto Les Aigles, or “The Eagles,” and its 500 acres of tracks – turf, all weather, and dirt – carved into a forest and under the auspices of France Galop. The birds are so loud that at times their chatter drowns out other sounds, except for the upbeat tune someone whistles off and on throughout the morning. Simple white signs with black lettering staked into the ground identify paths and clearings with names of great horses whose hooves left their mark here. Prior to setting out on their gallop, Head- Maarek’s team circle in the “Rond Le Fabuleux.” Grandfather Willie Head trained Le Fabuleux to win the 1964 Prix du Jockey Club. “I think I’ve been lucky,” says Head- Maarek. “My dad was a very good trainer. My grandfather was a fantastic trainer. They knew their horses so well and they taught me how to look at a horse and to see what’s wrong or what’s not right. That’s important.” At Écurie Head, keeping that eagle eye focused on the horses is a key component of racing success. Gilles Maarek, Le Parisien racing journalist and husband of Head- Maarek since 2000, tells his wife something she doesn’t seem to fully grasp: “You see something that some people don’t see. It’s hard for you to understand that, because they look and see nothing.” Perhaps such an advantage makes it easier for Head-Maarek to maintain a natural yard. “Why do strange things when you can do it simply?” she asks. One such simplicity is bedding horses on straw. She says, “I think they need to eat straw, because it’s good for them. From what I’ve seen, it’s my theory that the less you use funny things, if you’re more natural with horses, you don’t get lots of problems. I never have colics. I don’t have horses with stomach problems. I don’t bow horses. But you know, we’re very careful. If a horse has something we slow him down.” Head-Maarek feeds black oats, “lots of carrots,” and good hay from the south of France. “And when I can,” she says, “I give them artichokes, too. You can see they love it, and it’s good because it makes them chew a lot. I’ve been taught that way. My father was very natural with his horses. It’s much better than to have a vet coming all the time.” “You,” says Maarek, “are an exception, vet- wise.” “Why?” “Because your horses, they never see a vet in their life!” “I don't think they need it!” Head-Maarek laughs. “If a horse looks well, why try to find silly things? Moi, I don’t believe in vets. I believe in good work, good food, good hay, water.” That’s not to say that she won’t seek veterinary advice when necessary: When Treve ran third in the Prince of Wales’s at Royal Ascot three months after this interview, the trainer worried that something was amiss with the filly and consulted with vets, who found minor arthritis in her back and recommended a short break for the champion – a prescription bound to sit well with Head- Maarek, who also believes that letting a horse be a horse is the foundation of success. “What I do is when the weather’s good we go and eat grass in the paddock after the work and roll in the sand. That’s the way I do it. It’s simple, it doesn’t cost anything, and the horses, they’re much happier. I think if a horse is good up there” – she taps an index finger against her head – “he’s well everywhere. “It’s like people. If you’re well in the mind you’re well in the body.” Criquette Head-Maarek understands on a very personal level how important it is to be “well in the mind,” after a brain tumour in 1990 and a cancer diagnosis in 2005. “In those things,” she says, “I think mentally you have to fight. If you can fight mentally then you do better. When I had cancer I went to see the doctor with Gilles, and [the doctor] said, ‘The effect will be that and that and that.’ I turned to look at Gilles – he was white. I thought he was going to drop dead. So I said, ‘I’m the one who’s sick.’ “The doctor told me it’s not going to be easy. I said, ‘Look, it’s my way of living. I can’t quit my work, because my owners will go if I don’t still go out training. I have to work.’ So he said, ‘Well, try to do what you can but I don’t think you’ll be able to do anything, because you’ll be so tired and so sick and so that and so...’ I said, ‘Well, let’s see.’” Every day for three months, Head-Maarek oversaw AM training sessions in Chantilly, then drove herself to and from Paris in the afternoons to undergo chemotherapy and radiation treatments. “The doctor – who I still see of course – he says, ‘You know, since I’ve seen you, I never stop people from working. They have to work!’” Some of her lymph nodes were removed, a side effect of which is that her legs “get bigger and bigger.” Head-Maarek says with a shrug, “There’s no way I can do anything about it, so it’s annoying but that’s all. I’d rather have that effect than the alternative. I’m fine. Cancer always comes back – no, not always, but sometimes. Life is like that. If it comes back...well, I’ve had a fantastic life so far, so. And then what will happen will happen.” On the desk in her stable office decorated with photos of Treve, Special Duty, and one of her father’s Standardbreds, a nondescript trophy – the big-race trophies are in her nearby home – holds a stack of hats identical to the one she’s wearing. The hat is just part of her style; throughout chemo and radiation, Head-Maarek didn’t lose her hair. Instead, she lost a major owner. Idling on the John Deere Gator she uses to get around Les Aigles, Head-Maarek exchanges a friendly greeting with one of Pascal Bary’s work riders. He used to ride for her, she explains. “When I lost Wertheimer’s horses I had to put a lot of people on the street.” She pauses. “Well no, I didn’t put anyone on the street. I called around and found jobs for all of them.” The Wertheimers and the Heads share an association that is as much about European racing history and how it helped shape the breed internationally as it is about the families themselves. Heads have trained for three generations of Wertheimers: for Pierre and later his widow Germaine; their son Jacques; and his sons Alain and Gerard, who race as Wertheimer et Frere. Alec Head saddled many Classic winners for the family, from 1956 Epsom Derby winner Lavandin to Prix de Diane winner Reine de Saba in 1978, but is probably best remembered today for handling a trio of major sires: Green Dancer, Lyphard, and Riverman. Alec spotted and bought Lyphard (1972 Prix Jacques Le Marois and Prix de la Foret) and Riverman (1972 Poulains) at auction, while Green Dancer (1975 Poulains) was a Wertheimer homebred. Criquette Head-Maarek extended the Wertheimer-Head success with such Group 1 horses as Green Tune (1994 Poulains) and Agent Double (1984 Prix Royal-Oak) for Jacques and 2000 Diane winner and Arc second Egyptband for Wertheimer et Frere. Freddy Head, Criquette’s brother, rode most of the Wertheimer horses until he signed on as retained jockey for the Niarchos family in the mid-1980s. The relationship between the brothers Wertheimer and Head-Maarek became strained years later over their retention of rider Olivier Peslier. Trainer and jockey clashed. “It was a mess,” Head-Maarek says. “I called them and said, ‘I can’t go on like this.’ I had the cancer, and I was very sick for a while. I was winning lots of races for Prince Khalid [Abdullah of Juddmonte Farms], and for the Wertheimer horses – nothing. They were running bad. Each time I was telling [Peslier] to go in front, he was waiting at the back. So one day I blew up. I said to both brothers, ‘I want you to come hear the orders, okay? I’m going to give orders to Peslier, and I want him to ride the way I tell him to. If he doesn’t do it, I quit.’ And he didn’t do it. I was so upset. “I told them to choose: him or me. They thought I was going to die because of the cancer, so they said, ‘We’ll go.’ And that’s how it was. He’s a very good jockey but I didn’t get along with him,” she says. That final straw came on Quiet Royal, who ran fifth in the 6th August, 2006, Prix Maurice de Gheest, in which Marchand d’Or provided retired jockey Freddy Head with the first Group 1 of his training career. Freddy has since trained many Group 1 winners, including Goldikova – winner of 14 Group/Grade 1 races in France, England, and the US under Peslier for Wertheimer et Frere. The second of four siblings, Head-Maarek, whose mother Ghislaine is from the van de Poele family of trainers, doesn’t remember a time when she wasn’t around horses. “Moi, I think since I’m walking, I ride. When I was a baby my father used to take me to the track every morning sitting in front of him [on his hack].” Nor does she remember ever going by her given name, “Christiane.” She says, “Papa had a friend who had a daughter called Criquette, and I think he liked the name. At school, you know, many times I wouldn’t answer when they would say, ‘Christiane, Christiane!’ I was so used to being called ‘Criquette.’” Although there was never any doubt in her mind what she would do with her life, it was not as clear-cut to everyone else. “When I was very young I said to my dad that I would be a trainer like him. And he said to me, ‘No. Women can’t be trainers,’ because in those days it wasn’t allowed.” “Nobody had the idea,” adds Gilles Maarek. “I was born in 1948, so that was three years after the end of the war. In those days, women would have babies and cook, clean the house, look after their husband well. Now it’s different. Now it’s the husband who looks after his wife!” Head-Maarek laughs. “Papa said to me, ‘One day, maybe you’ll marry a trainer.’” Head-Maarek spent mornings and free time at her father’s yard until she left France to attend boarding school in England. Her first marriage, to banker Rene Romanet, took her farther from home to Spain, where daughter Patricia was born before the family returned to France in 1974. Once Criquette Head-Maarek had “had the idea,” as Maarek put it, of becoming a trainer, she was determined to make it happen. While working as her father’s assistant, she applied for a licence in 1976 – the year before she purchased that tail-swishing Lyphard filly at Tattersalls. She went out on her own in September, 1977. Head-Maarek was the second woman, after Myriam Bollack-Badel in 1975, to acquire a French training licence. Success was immediate. In 1978, the two- year-old Habitat filly Sigy, bred by de Chambure, won the Group 1 Prix de l’Abbaye in October against older horses, ridden by Freddy Head. But Head-Maarek believed that she had another two-year-old better than Sigy in Three Troikas, that Lyphard filly she had fallen in love with as a foal and bought as a yearling. “She was as fast as Sigy,” she recalls. “But then she was so big I said I’ll take my time. She ran once at the end of her two-year-old year, ridden by Freddy. There were 20 runners at Saint-Cloud, and the ground was very deep. She won by a head, beating nothing, and I said to Freddy, ‘You know, that’s our best horse for next year, for the Prix de Diane and for all the big races.’ And he said to me, ‘No, no, no, she’s not good.’ “So Papa said, ‘My trainer says she’s good and my jockey says she’s not much. Who do I believe?!’ It was so funny.” Three Troikas made six starts during her three-year-old season, winning all but the Diane, when she ran second to Dunette by a nose. In Ghislaine Head’s beige silks with black sleeves and with Freddy Head aboard, Three Troikas won four Group 1s in 1979: the Pouliches, in which Head-Maarek became the first woman to train a French Classic winner; Prix Vermeille; Prix Saint-Alary; and, of course, the Arc, at odds of 8-1 by three lengths against 21 other horses, including stablemate Fabulous Dancer. ike Three Troikas, Head-Maarek’s second Arc winner Treve has deep-rooted family connections. Treve’s first two dams, as well as the sires of her first three dams, were trained by members of the Head dynasty, and her Epsom Derby-winning sire Motivator has stood at the family’s Haras du Quesnay in Deauville since 2013. Quesnay is also where Treve’s broodmare sire Anabaa spent most of his stud career, siring the likes of Goldikova, before he passed away in 2009. The Danzig horse was bred by the Gainsborough Farm of Sheikh Maktoum al Maktoum – for whom Head-Maarek won the 1,000 Guineas with Ma Biche in 1983 – and was gifted to the Head family after Head- Maarek refused to follow veterinary advice to euthanase him in the wake of a back injury on the gallops, when he was labelled a wobbler. For Ghislaine Head, Anabaa won the Darley July Cup and Prix Maurice de Gheest. Head-Maarek picks up a binder on her desk, opening it to Treve’s pedigree. “The fun part,” she says, “is that Anabaa is there, Riverman is there, Lyphard is there. Trevillari is the first one [in the family] I trained.” A daughter of Riverman, Trevillari – Treve’s granddam – only placed on the racecourse. Head-Maarek trained her full sister Treble to Group 1 glory in the 1984 Prix Saint-Alary for their owner-breeder Edward Stephenson. Their dam, Trevilla (by Lyphard), was unraced. Treve’s dam Trevise is an own sister to Listed winner Tsigane but was not herself a black-type horse. Head-Maarek says: “Trevise was trained by Freddy. She won as a two-year-old, very impressively – she beat [future Breeders’ Cup Mile winner] Six Perfections here in Chantilly first time out, and then something happened to her and she didn’t train on. But it’s a very solid female family. Papa has always loved it and he said we have to stick with it. So we did! And here comes [Treve].” Racing first as a homebred in Quesnay’s solid red silks, Treve was sold privately to the Al Shaqab Racing of Sheikh Joaan al Thani following her four-length canter in the Prix de Diane – Head-Maarek’s third win in the Classic – last June. The filly remained undefeated through the end of her three-year- old season, until a narrow second to Cirrus des Aigles in April’s Prix Ganay in her four- year-old debut. Treve’s box at the yard is flanked by two of her half-sisters: the Mr. Sidney three-year-old Trophee, who placed at two; and the unraced two-year-old Toride, by Fuisse. The sires of both fillies stand at Quesnay. Trevise has no yearling, foaled a filly by Motivator this year, and returned to that sire to try for another full sibling to the Arc winner. Since 2009, Alec and Ghislaine’s children – Freddy, Criquette, Patricia, and Martine – have owned Le Quesnay, which they run through a company. Criquette and Freddy try to visit the stud, managed by Vincent Rimaud, once a week. “Mama is 86 and Papa will be 90 this year, so they live in the Bahamas. They love it. I talk to them as much as I can. We need our background, so Papa’s still with us,” says Head-Maarek. “But he hasn’t got any more worries, let’s put it that way.” “Worries” came in the form of running such a sizeable operation; the deaths of Quesnay sires Anabaa, Bering, and Highest Honor; and fertility problems experienced with Gold Away. “We had to renew all our stallions, so they’re all young,” Head-Maarek says. The plan is to sell some of the homebred yearlings and keep others to race. Treve, whose name translates to “Truce,” was offered at the 2011 Arqana October yearling sale, where she was bought back for €22,000. Criquette Head-Maarek is, not surprisingly, extremely proud of her Arc triumphs. “Of course,” she says. “And then every race that I’ve won abroad, all the Guineas, and the Coronation, the Champion Stakes...I mean, every race that you win, whether it’s a big race or a small race, it’s nice, because you've done the right thing, the horse is in where it belonged. Of course when you win the Arc with Treve it’s different. It’s more the glamour of it, but for me it’s more – I would not say ‘the same’ because people will think that I’m crazy – but if you put a horse in a race and you win it, you’ve done the right thing, that’s all I can say. “It’s much more difficult to train bad horses than good ones. Much more. Good ones, they do everything right, and they make you look good.” Head-Maarek laughs, as if we are to believe her record – tied with Charles Semblat – of seven Poule d’Essai des Pouliches victories is all down to the horses. “Well thanks, but it’s both,” she says. “Let’s “It’s much more difficult to train bad horses than good ones. Much more. Good ones, they do everything right, and they make you look good” “Motivator came up, before Treve was Treve – we did the deal when Treve was a two-year- old. Motivator is good for the stud because he brings a lot of people in. We’ve got more clients, we’ve changed a few things. Papa did not need to have clients. He could run the place no problem, but we can’t afford for the moment to run it without clients.” Of Quesnay’s six active stallions, Fuisse (a homebred by Head-Maarek-trained Green Tune, who was by Alec Head-trained Green Dancer) and Youmzain have their first two- year-olds, while Dunkerque (also a homebred, by Highest Honor) and Mr. Sidney are second-crop sires. All of these young horses bar Dunkerque, a dual Group 3 winner, are Group or Grade 1 winners. put it that way. I think horses make 80% of everything. And I’m lucky, because when you train for big owners it’s a big plus. If you have a big stable with a big breeding operation behind you it’s a big, big plus.” The Quesnay breeding operation has certainly been a big plus, providing such homebred stock as Bering, the 1986 Prix du Jockey Club winner whose only loss was a second, despite breaking his knee during the running, in the Arc to Dancing Brave; and Silvermine, Head-Maarek’s second Pouliches winner, in 1985. Alec Head and Roland de Chambure’s Societe Aland funnelled many other good horses, including her first Diane winner, Harbour (1982), and 1988 Pouliches and 1,000 Guineas winner Ravinella, to Head- Maarek. The patronage of longtime owner Juddmonte has been advantageous as well. Their Classic winners together are Special Duty, who after Ravinella is Head-Maarek’s second winner of both the Pouliches and the 1,000 Guineas (the latter via disqualification), in 2010; and American Post, winner of the 2004 Poulains. Whereas Freddy Head was a six-time champion rider in France, Head-Maarek’s own brush with race riding was fleeting; she participated in seven amateur races in her late teens, winning at Fontainebleau on her first mount. Now that her brother is churning out Group 1 winners from his yard a few doors down the road, Head-Maarek takes a keen interest in his successes. He has a runner in the first at Deauville this morning, and Head-Maarek slips into her office and turns on the TV to watch the race. Someone pops in hoping for an autographed photo of Treve, so while the horses load, the trainer obliges, keeping one eye on the TV then taking a seat to cheer on her brother’s horse, a Paris- Turf newspaper open on her lap. “We’re in competition, yes and no,” Head- Maarek says. “Of course, we’re used to racing one against the other.” Earlier, during first lot, standing on the wet grass within sight of Freddy’s white hack through the bare trees, the young visitors, here to see Treve’s work – after which they take their leave – ask Head-Maarek many questions. She answers patiently, enthusiastically. No one could say that the grandmother of three – daughter Patricia is married to trainer Carlos Laffon-Parias, who won the Arc in 2012 with the Wertheimer’s Solemia – is anything but a wonderful ambassador to the sport and livelihood she loves. “Trêve, ah oui, elle allez bien seule, mais elle va chercher les autres!” Treve, she tells them, will be zooming down the straight alone near the back of the string, but the filly will catch up to the others without much effort, simply because she’s that talented. Depending on the weather, first lot will spend up to ninety minutes outside, with each successive set getting progressively shorter. “I always like to have my good horses first lot,” Head-Maarek says, “because we have more time.” The horses cool out from their works in another clearing on Les Aigles. Head-Maarek passes along observations and quizzes her riders on what they felt during their exercise: “Il et bien?” “Il est bien, madame, oui,” someone answers. Some of the riders jump out of the saddles to lead their horses around in the big circle. “After work it’s good for them to handwalk like that without any weight on their back. Then we put them back up,” Head-Maarek says. “I’m very, very precautious about the weight.” Treve, with Galoche back aboard, strides over and stops to nuzzle her trainer, who laughs. “She knows me so well. Each time I call her she comes to me like that.” She speaks to Treve (mostly in French), apologising for not having a carrot. One of the women rides up on a blowing horse, pulling a carrot out of her own jacket pocket and handing it to Head-Maarek. fe Treve is only the most recent in a long line of “good” horses to wear the white cloth numbered 68 – Head-Maarek’s France Galop- assigned number, the system by which loose horses are tracked down to their yards – underneath the stable’s fancier rugs. There are some runaways – from this and other yards – on Les Aigles this morning. None of them get very far. The two-year-olds, she explains as some of them kick up their heels down the straight, are particularly “fresh.” “He feels good! I like to see them like that.” As it is only March and the young stock have not been at the yard for long, Head-Maarek drums them into her memory. “Every day I repeat them,” she says. There are sons and daughters of Quesnay stallions Dunkerque, Fuisse, and Mr. Sidney, and others by top sires like Dansili, Exceed and Excel, Mizzen Mast, Oasis Dream, Sea the Stars, and Tapit. Al Shaqab’s Sea the Stars colt is a half-brother to Motivator, and a Quesnay-homebred Fuisse filly is a half-sister to Group 1 winner Elusive Kate. Juddmonte sent daughters of two top fillies she trained: Special Duty and Etoile Montante. Soon, she will have an idea of which of the two-year-olds could be stars like Special Duty or Treve. “With Treve,” Head-Maarek says, “in April when she started to work, she was much better than anything that I had in the yard. “It’s difficult to compare horses. I’ve had very good mares and good fillies in training but like “I’ve had very good mares and good fillies in training but like Treve, we don’t get many. With the speed that she’s got, that turn of foot she can produce, that’s quite unusual” Treve, we don’t get many. With the speed that she’s got, that turn of foot she can produce, that’s quite unusual. She can follow any pace. Fast pace, slow pace, inside, outside – wherever she is, she feels happy. She’s like a little bicycle. In the Arc, she had a terrible race, the worst race you can dream of. They knocked her out, she was outside all the way, she came early, and without doing any effort, she won very smooth.” fe Head-Maarek, her feet in rain boots and squarely planted on Les Aigles and surrounded by memories of the great Heads who came before her, says, “I’m not working.” A moment passes by before she adds, “Sure, it’s a lot of time. It’s very demanding. But it’s rewarding – of course. For me it’s never a problem because everything’s so easy, you know? I’m on vacation every day. You always have something to look forward to or to push you ahead of everything, so as long as you’re well physically, you can go on doing it.” Overseeing her final set, comprised of mostly two-year-olds, Head-Maarek may wonder if that “something to look forward to” is her first Epsom Derby winner – a race that has eluded her and is at the top of her wish list – but it’s not a thought she’d be likely to dwell on. Any major accomplishments – like a second, or perhaps, if she dares to dream a little, a third, Arc with Treve – are a bonus. For now, her full attention is on the horses in front of her. She points to a flashy bay colt, one of several with a body clip. “I don’t clip my horses,” says Head-Maarek. “In about a week’s time this filly” – she singles out a brown horse with a natural coat – “she’ll have a beautiful coat, she’s starting to dapple all over the place. The ones you see who are clipped just arrived from somewhere else. That’s another thing that’s not natural, because the hair has to grow, and it takes a lot out of a horse to grow his hair back. Simple things. It’s been working like that, it doesn’t work badly!” “It’s too late to change anyway,” says Gilles Maarek with a smile. “Oui!” she replies. “I’m too old to change!” And she laughs again. “The first time I talked to Criquette was at Saint-Cloud,” reminisces Maarek. He stops to pluck a small flower bud from the grass of Les Aigles. “Tiens. C’est un cadeau,” he says, handing it to her. “How beautiful! Beautiful! Very romantic,” she says, tucking the gift away in the Gator to take back to her yard. “Everything is starting to bloom,” says the trainer whose bloom has never worn off. It could be said that Criquette Head- Maarek, who defied the establishment to become the world’s most formidable lady trainer, has enjoyed a lifelong romance with the turf.](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/517636f8e4b0cb4f8c8697ba/1466694253255-QOX041YL5XN8WYWVCP04/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kKFEGCTsSaglhrLba3kE9yJZw-zPPgdn4jUwVcJE1ZvWgCjmTad1QpYCGph9EV4QZUJFbgE-7XRK3dMEBRBhUpxH8OCYBAtLKcHJgtcj8F3sHWz_C4baTxEGK8PSUNPSJml5lQCrND3r329z-WqhH9s/Criquette+Head-Maarek.jpg)
