Brisset Back Out on His Own as Public Trainer

Trainer Rodolphe "Rudy" Brisset is going back out on his own after a nearly six-month stint as a semi-private trainer at WinStar Farm's training center near Versailles, Ky.

WinStar announced June 27 that it had hired Brisset to focus more on Kentucky racing and race off the training center, similar to how other trainers use Fair Hill Hill Training Center in Maryland and Palm Beach Downs in South Florida. Brisset was not to be the sole trainer for WinStar, who was still working with other trainers, and Brisset still retained the ability to train up to 20 horses for other clients.

As first reported by Daily Racing Farm, the arrangement ultimately didn't seem to suit either party.

"It wasn't working to the extent we envisioned," Elliott Walden, president, CEO, and racing manager for WinStar told BloodHorse. "It was nobody's fault. We have had tremendous success with our training center over the years and look forward to the future."

Neal McLaughlin will now head up the training center and Terry Arnold will manage the pre-training and rehabilitation program.  

Brisset echoed Walden saying: "It just felt like it wasn't going the way we wanted. It is nothing huge. We are still working together and I am still training WinStar horses. We are just going back to where we were before I moved to semi-private. Really, I just want to put the word out that we are now public and can take clients from anywhere.

"WinStar and I want the same thing—to win stakes and win grade 1s. Sometimes you go back one step to take a bigger step forward," he added.

Brisset said he will have 20 stalls at Keeneland, where he is based from April through December and then will have 20 stalls at Oaklawn Park. The trainer said the main goal for his racing business and his farm is to support year-round racing in Kentucky.

"We have been going to Turfway for the last two years, and I would love to be there now but the meet has started so we won't be able to get stalls. Keeneland is home for us, so we'll just train from there and ship in," he said.

Born in Tours, France, Brisset, 39, graduated from a racing academy run by France's Association de Formation et d'Action Sociale des Écuries de Course. In 2005, Brisset moved to the United States to work for trainer Patrick Biancone and then for Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott, who he started out with as an exercise rider and was soon promoted to assistant trainer. Brisset worked 11 years for Mott and then went out on his own in 2017.

Brisset has saddled 171 winners since then, including 14 black-type winners. His top performers include multiple graded stakes winner Quip , and other graded stakes winners Talk Veuve to Me , Positive Spirit , My Majestic Rose , We The People , and Yuugiri . His runners have earned more than $11.7 million so far and earn nearly $11,200 per start.