The Perfect Cocktail
by Lisa Harkema
When the French studbook was briefly opened between 1987 and 1992, conservative French breeders generally nixed the opportunity to breed their mares to foreign sires. Some even went as far as claiming they “didn’t want to plant weed in their garden”, saying in no unclear terms that the American standardbred had absolutely nothing to offer the French trotter whose studbook had been closed since 1937 and only opened for five foreign-born stallions and a few other exceptions. Despite what the naysayers claimed, though, opening up the studbook took French trotting to a completely new level – and the best example of this is Coktail Jet.
The Franco-American protocol was valid from 1987 to 1991, inclusive, and affected the crops born from 1988 to 1992. It opened up for ten French mares to be bred to non-French stallions, and ten non-French mares to be bred to French stallions, and the foals would qualify for the French studbook. Breeders had to apply in advance and, given that more that 10,000 broodmares are bred annually in France, one might have expected tough competition for these spots – but that was not the case. However, a few bright minds still saw the potential, among them Jean-Pierre Dubois and his family. Dubois owned a few excellent French broodmares, including Nesmile, who was consistently bred to American stallions during this opening in the studbook.
His oldest son, Jean-Etienne, decided to take the reverse approach. He had bought the Canadian/born-Armbro Glamour for $17,000, an amount that Dubois later stated was “all my savings at the time”, at an auction at the Meadowlands in 1988. Even though she was bought by Jean-Etienne there can be no question that Dubois senior played a major part in the decision: he had seen Elma impress at Vincennes in the mid-60s, winning the Prix de France and finishing second to Roquepine in the Prix d’Amerique. Armbro Glamour was out of Speedy Sug, a daughter to a full sister to Elma. In an interview with Province-Course, Jean-Etienne Dubois stated “We selected her from the catalog, with my father, because she was a daughter of the crack Super Bowl, himself by the champion Star’s Pride, and, even more, because she descended from Elma, a champion whom my father had seen running in Europe and who had impressed her. (…) I trained Armbro Glamour a little in the United States before returning to France with her, but she was not good. She was probably made for breeding.”