Boutin, French Trainer of Miesque and Arazi, Dies of Cancer

Francois Boutin, one of France’s leading trainers who also left his mark in the United States with such horses as Miesque and Arazi, died Wednesday in a Paris-area hospital. He was 58.

Found to have liver cancer in March, 1993, Boutin had continued working until recently, getting up early every morning to oversee operations at his base in Chantilly.

Known for his distinctive silver-gray hair, Boutin wore a cap when he was at Santa Anita for the 1993 Breeders’ Cup because his hair had fallen out while undergoing chemotherapy.

“I have brushed shoulders with death and am still on deferment because it is serious,” he said in 1993. “I can’t continue to go racing as regularly as before, but I still try to be on the training track in the morning. As I have been so close to dying, I have probably attached myself even more to my horses.”

Born in Beaunay as a son of a farmer, Boutin took out his trainer’s license in 1964, trained privately for Marcel Boussac that year, then went public in 1965.

A winner of 1,881 races, Boutin trained La Lagune, Nonoalco, Nureyev, River Lady and April Run, but his most memorable horses to Americans are Miesque and Arazi.

After winning six of seven starts in France in 1987, Miesque came over and earned the Eclipse Award as the female grass champion with an easy victory in the Breeders’ Cup Mile at Hollywood Park. A year later, she achieved the same feat at Churchill Downs and is the only European horse to have won two Breeders’ Cup races.

Arazi was spectacular in his 2-year-old season in France, winning six of seven, then blew away his rivals in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Churchill Downs, winning by five lengths.

Immediately, Arazi became almost everyone’s choice for the 1992 Kentucky Derby. But after undergoing two knee operations within days of the Breeders’ Cup win, Arazi raced only once--against a nondescript field in a mile turf race in France--before returning for the Derby.

That was the decision of owner Allen Paulson and Boutin reluctantly agreed. He believed that a single prep wasn’t the way to approach the Derby. Arazi made a brief run in the race before fading to eighth.

“(Boutin’s death) was almost expected,” trainer Ron McAnally said. “After all, he’d been fighting for two years. We were very close, if you can call an American and a Frenchman being close. He was a gentleman and a good horseman and devoted to the game.”

Boutin is survived by his wife, the former Lucy Young, the daughter of William T. Young, the man behind Overbrook Farm, and two daughters, Patricia and Nathalie, and a son, Eric. Boutin was widowed before he remarried in 1989.

Horse Racing Notes

Corey Nakatani, Santa Anita’s leading rider through the first 27 days of the meeting, was handed a five-day suspension by the stewards, beginning Saturday. Nakatani was cited for “altering course without sufficient clearance entering the clubhouse turn” while riding I’ma Game Master in Sunday’s third race. I’ma Game Master won, but was not disqualified after a lengthy inquiry. . . . A field of six seems probable for Sunday’s $500,000 Strub Stakes, which will be televised by ESPN. Wekiva Springs, a winner of six in a row, among them last month’s San Fernando, will be favored in the 1 1/4-mile race against a field that also will include Dramatic Gold, Dare And Go, Strodes Creek, College Town and Colonel Collins. Post time on Sunday will be noon, 30 minutes earlier than usual, to accommodate television.