A French-Bred Jockey : Eric Saint-Martin, Son of the Famed Yves, Is Riding Low at Hollypark

A mother and wife could hardly have been prouder than Michelle Saint-Martin a few weeks ago.

Madame Saint-Martin flew to California to see how Eric, her 19-year-old son, was surviving without real French cooking, and in the bargain watched the apprentice jockey win a couple of races at Hollywood Park. Then she boarded another jetliner in time to get back to Chantilly, where Yves Saint-Martin, her 43-year-old husband, rode Mouktar, the Aga Khan’s gray colt, to victory in the French Derby.

Watching her husband win the French Derby was not new for Michelle Saint-Martin. Yves also won the race last year for the Aga Khan, and Mouktar gave him his eighth victory in the stake. When Saint-Martin won his first French Derby, in 1965, his wife was about three months away from delivering Eric, the first of their three children and a boy whose father never envisioned becoming a jockey.

Until Eric was 15, he didn’t fancy his father’s career, either. He wanted to be a film actor, another Alain Delon maybe, and after seeing Brooke Shields in “The Blue Lagoon,” he began dreaming of the fringe benefits, as well. “I thought to myself, ‘What a beautiful girl,’ ” Saint-Martin said the other day as he recalled his first impression of Shields.

No one will ever know if it is acting’s loss, but in the summer of his 15th year, Saint-Martin and a friend were racing their ponies on the beach at Deauville. Saint-Martin beat his buddy and came back from the romp exhilarated and inspired. A short time later, he enrolled in a boarding school near Paris, and its curriculum included riding lessons.

Now, five years later, the son of France’s best jockey is at Hollywood Park, trying to compete with the best riders in the United States--Laffit Pincay, Chris McCarron and Bill Shoemaker, just for openers.

And just why is he racing here?

Eric Saint-Martin rode his first race in France in November, 1982. Among his subsequent victories were three over his father, whom he outfinished by a neck in one race. But the pressures were great. It was like it would have been had Roberto Clemente’s son tried to crack the lineup of the Pittsburgh Pirates while his father was still hitting .300. And because there is racing in France only eight months a year, Eric was not developing as a horseman.

Last November, before he rode the Aga Khan’s Lashkari to victory in the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Turf Stakes at Hollywood Park, Yves Saint-Martin asked trainer John Gosden, the transplanted Englishman, if he would give Eric a job exercising horses when Santa Anita opened.

Gosden said he would, and Eric arrived in February. A month later, Gosden put Saint-Martin on his first horse in a race, and so did a few other trainers.

For trainer Jude Feld, Saint-Martin won his first U.S. race on Pelope, a 5-year-old mare, in a claiming race April 5, but the Santa Anita season ended with that victory and 49 non-winning rides. Some trainers were uncomfortable using a jockey whose rear end was higher than his mount’s head--common in Europe but hardly de rigueur here.

Saint-Martin has gotten his posterior down to half-mast, and in the process has won eight races at Hollywood Park, one at Golden Gate Fields and the Hasta La Vista Handicap at Turf Paradise. When Saint-Martin won a race at Hollywood recently, his mother said she didn’t recognize him. Crossing the finish line, he was lower on his horse than the American jockeys behind him.

There’s a reason for jockeys to ride high in Europe: The races are held over numerous turf courses, each uniquely undulated, and the riders need to see where the dips are. Conversely, Saint-Martin has a reason to keep his behind down here--it’s called survival.

“You need to be low for protection,” said Saint-Martin, whose English is more than passable. “It hurts to get hit in the face by the dirt and the clods. It must really punish the horses when they are hit. Sometimes, they lug out when that happens.”

Saint-Martin’s introduction to dirt--European racing is only on grass--has been followed by his first spill, a painful experience when he was unseated by his mount, the favored Super Noble, last Saturday at Hollywood. Saint-Martin was struck by a trailing horse and suffered thigh, calf and neck injuries. He rode six horses Sunday, but after two non-racing days he took Wednesday off to let the soreness subside. The pain might have been greater because Super Noble is a French-bred colt, trained by Gosden, and was ridden by Eric’s father before the horse started running here this year.

“I felt bad because I lost a winner,” Saint-Martin said. “There was nothing I could do. The horse kept jumping shadows, shadows from the light poles on the track.”

If Saint-Martin should succeed here, it would be the reverse of the Steve Cauthen story, which saw a top American jockey go to Europe and slowly become No. 1 in England. Cash Asmussen, another American, has thrived while riding in France.

But Cauthen and Asmussen had advantages Saint-Martin has lacked. Both went abroad under contract to established racing stables. And Cauthen went to a country that spoke his language, while Asmussen had a way in the saddle that already approached the European style of riding.

None of Saint-Martin’s winners has come for Gosden, the trainer who got him started at Santa Anita. “The boy is improving all the time,” said Charlie Whittingham, another trainer who has given Saint-Martin some mounts. “He’s gotten better on grass especially, which kind of figures since that’s what he’s used to, but he’s improving on dirt, too.”

Derek Lawson, Saint-Martin’s agent, pointed out that more than half of his rider’s wins have come on dirt.

Lawson, 31, is as new to the jockey-agent game as Saint-Martin is to riding, having struggled with a few unsuccessful riders before his ability to speak French helped him get the apprentice’s book.

Lawson studied journalism and broadcasting in college, once worked for Hollywood Park’s publicity mill and hasn’t forgotten it. Struck by Saint-Martin’s infatuation with Brooke Shields, Lawson recently hustled his rider over to a Beverly Hills store where the actress was autographing copies of her book. There was an exchange, Saint-Martin getting the book signed and Shields receiving an autographed print of a winner’s-circle photo, and although nothing has come out of the meeting socially, Lawson just happened to have commissioned a photographer, who is supplying pictures of the pair to the European press.

Saint-Martin, interviewed while sitting at a swimming pool outside his Playa del Rey apartment, was asked which he would value more, winning the Kentucky Derby or getting a date with Shields.

He thought for a moment and said: “I don’t know.”

That’s French diplomacy for you. He hasn’t given his father a description of last Saturday’s fall yet, but he will, since the two jockeys talk on the telephone once a week. Even for a jockey who has earned about $16,000 in the last six weeks at Hollywood Park, that would seem to be a costly habit.

“No,” Eric Saint-Martin said. “I always call collect.”