Tony Parker’s “fifth ring” came off the basketball courts: his filly Mangoustine won at the start of the French Triple Crown

The French Tony Parker, former teammate of Manu Ginóbili in San Antonio Spurs, celebrated “a fifth ring” last Sunday. To the traditional four that he achieved as a basketball player playing in the NBA, he added another in the role of race horse owner: his mare mangoustin won by the head in ParisLongchamp’s Cock Fillies (G1), the beginning of the Triple Crown of his country, two days before the 40th birthday of the former number 9.

“I feel incredible. This is like a dream! I never thought that after a little over a year in this world, and investing in it, I would win a race like this. I want to thank our entire team: they have worked very hard to achieve it”, said Parker at the end of the race, happy for the victory and walking calmly through the public almost as if he were another attendee at the racetrack. Some phones and cameras were pointed at him and others were watching him closely with admiration, but he was the opposite of feeling the usual harassment that sports fanaticism brings about by megastars.

“I was calm like in my playing days, but when I saw that I was going to beat Cachet [la favorita] I felt the same rush of adrenaline as when I won the rings. Some people have horses 30 years old and never enjoy a moment like this. I am going to do it, because you never know if it is going to happen again”, portrayed who, while living in Texas, saw loose equines daily in numerous cabins in the area. “You can see that this gave me the appetite to get involved, because now I am as passionate about turf as I was about basketball when I played it,” he confided to the agency. AFP.

Parker discovered racing thanks to a passionate horse, Valéry Demory, the coach of the women’s basketball team of Lyon Villeurbanne, the club that Tony is president and owner of. Through him, the former player met the young and successful coach Ludovic Gadbin, based in Nort-Sur-Erdre, and his wife, Victoria, who became associated with the former point guard through some specimens, including Best Win, the mare with whom Parker achieved his first racetrack success, on August 28, 2020 at Clairefontaine. That time, in the midst of a pandemic, Tony followed the competition from his phone.

That afternoon had a peculiarity: it was the first time any of Parker’s horses competed in the jacket designed by himself. The black and white combination is directly related to the franchise in which he was a star and the premiere of the colors that identify his stable could not be better. In his second presentation, Best Win prevailed in the drizzle by five and a half lengths on the same track and distance in which she had been an escort when debuting, in the 2400 meters of Tourgéville grass, near Deauville, Normandy region. .

Since then he was opening the game with Infinity Nine Horses, your cabin, which he baptized. “We don’t buy horses to simply have more. It is the fruit of a long reflection. We are looking for horses that are capable of reaching the big races”, was the message when the stud was enlarged. This success in the French Polla de Filies bore his stamp, because the tordilla wore his jacket, but the society involves a different group of people compared to the first, which he achieved 20 months earlier. Mangoustine has three other owners, including his breeders Ecurie Des Monceaux and Qatar Racing. And he has another trainer, Mikel Delzangles. He is more, the current leader of the Formula 1 drivers’ championship, the Monegasque charles leclercjoined another of his horses, Afghanistan, which is in the hands of a third different caretaker and has yet to win in five attempts. All the balls are not in the same basket, it is clear.

The filly, who won four of her five races and finished third in the remaining one, had already given the former basketball player unusual joy last October in Chantilly, when in the 1400 meters she won the Prix Miesque (G3) for a body and a room on Txope, owned by… Antoine Griezmann. In light of her evolution, it is likely that she will be taken to the English slopes to revalidate her titles away from home, including at Ascot, before the eyes of Queen Elizabeth II herself.

In that case, the one with experience is Mangoustine’s jockey, Gerald Mosse, 55 years old and 39 on the slopes. Equestrian fans in Argentina remember him because he rode Sixties Song when the winning horse of Carlos Pellegrini 2016 and Latinoamericano 2017 was taken to England and finished last against the best European long distance runners, and the rider is a globetrotter who left his mark in grand prizes not only in his homeland, but also in Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Australia, Canada, the United Arab Emirates and Hong Kong. Parker has him as an ally for the next possession.