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By Ray Hickson

For a kid who actively disliked study, it’s a little ironic that Lou Mary has spent his adult life learning everything he can about racing in pursuit of excellence as a trainer.

Hailing from the town of Beaupreau, in the west of France, the 35-year-old finds himself building a career from the New South Wales equine epicentre of Scone having absorbed the advice of some big names and gained plenty of hands on experience in all facets of the industry.

Scone based trainer Lou Mary (Pic: Bradley Photos)

With just over two years of training in his own right behind him, and more than a decade of experience both locally and internationally, Mary can’t wait for the next phase to begin as he grows a modest team of a dozen into something he sees as more than just a country stable.

“I never look around at what other trainers are doing, my main focus is the horses and owners,’’ he said.

“I’m not someone who goes and looks over the fence, you keep it simple and enjoy your racing.

“Being in the country doesn’t mean you have to limit yourself to country racing. It’s just a location for training horses. It’s some three hours down the road to come to Sydney.

“The industry is blooming, it’s getting more and more competitive. Which is good. You’ve got to challenge yourself, force yourself to get up every morning and try harder.

“In the near future we’d like to secure boxes on track so we can grow be more efficient. To have 30-40 horses in work and to be able to come to Sydney on Saturday and have a couple of runners and be competitive. That’s what it’s all about.”

You wouldn’t think those ambitious words would come from a boy whose father had to instill in him a hard work ethic when it became apparent school just wasn’t for him. But how things change.

He now has a degree in Equine Sciences having developed a thirst for knowledge about racing that obviously wasn’t being met in the classrooms of Beaupreau.

“I remember my dad telling me ‘Lou if you’re not going pursue your studies you’re going to have to be a hard worker’,’’ he said.

“I wasn’t a fan of school. I couldn’t stop thinking about the back of a horse and didn’t like the idea of being locked between four walls.

“I had the chance early on to meet Richard Gibson. He said one of the key points in becoming a successful trainer was to understand the whole industry.”

By the time he was 10 or so he’d started riding trackwork and it was through his father, and the presence of racing in Beaupreau, that his passion for racing grew.

Gibson, who now trains in Hong Kong, worked for top local trainer Henri Alex Pantall in Mary’s home town and he came something of a mentor for Mary, encouraging him to learn English and to get all the experience he could. Plus, he pointed to Australia as the place to further his career.

“My dad was good mates with some of the jockeys at the time, they used to have a few beers at the same pub, and as a kid I would hang around with my dad,’’ he said.

“He took me very young to the races and I was hooked.

“Alex has this beautiful private track, old buildings. I remember the long strings of 30-35 riders at a time. The stable went like clockwork, very strict and very professional.

“When you grow up around this, I just fell in love with the game.

“My first dream was to be a flat jockey but I wasn’t very successful. It was a good experience, understanding the inside of the pressure the jockeys have on them.

“The split-second decisions, it was a good understand of the other side of the fence.

“I worked on stud farms in Ireland, strapping, pre-training, breeze ups, rode some point to point. Everything I could do I tried to put my hands on.

“It was all a big change for me because I started to get interested in studying and the economic side.”

Mary landed in Australia in the 2009/10 season and started working for OTI Racing’s Terry Henderson on a farm in Kilmore.

He would work with Bronwyn Upjohn, who was in charge at the time, breaking in and pre-training horses and dabbled in trackwork riding for Kilmore based trainers Lee and Shannon Hope.

An accident changed his course and after going travelling for six months, sleeping in the back of his Mitsubishi Magna, he found himself turning up at Arrowfield in the Hunter Valley and asking Paul Messara for a job.

Proverbial (Chad Schofield) gives Lou Mary his first Highway win at Rosehill in June. (Pic: Steve Hart)

“After I broke my collarbone I jumped in my station wagon and went travelling for six months,’’ he said.

“A good friend of mine gave me a call and said he was working at Arrowfield.

“I gave a call to Paul and showed up in my station wagon and asked if I could have a job. He went to the car park and had a look at the car and said ‘you’ve got a job tomorrow’. I worked four years for him.”

A stint as travelling foreman for Gary Moore linked Mary with his now fiancé Jamie Lee Good and after two years he found his way back to Scone and another gig for Messara, this time as a breaker.

Eventually, he had to go it alone and it was a $2000 mare he took a chance on called Southern Cloud that gave Mary his first winner as a trainer in December 2020 when she overcame a wide barrier to win a Class 1 at Gunnedah by a healthy three lengths.

“I was driving trucks on the side for a horse transport company for a wage. It took some time to go full time,’’ he said.

“Cameron Crockett was very good to me, we shared stables with him off track and I was riding a bit of trackwork for him as well as riding my own.”

Another tried mare would give Mary his first metropolitan success back in June 2022. Proverbial won a TAB Highway at Rosehill as a $51 chance beating, ironically, a horse called Summer Glow who Mary broke in for Paul Messara.

And it gave him the taste for what he hopes can be.

“John Ryan, Proverbial’s owner breeder, sent her to me with no expectation and was just hoping to win a country maiden,’’ he said.

“He told me it was about 20 years since he’d come to Rosehill and there we were, a beautiful sunny day, and it was very special.

“We are trying to build long term relationships with our clients, to stick with us for the next 20 years.

“It’s always been a dream to train. Hopefully down the track we will be here every Saturday and competitive with the best of the best.”

*This article originally appeared in the December 2022 edition of the Racing NSW magazine

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