Sixty years ago, John Fitzgerald Kennedy became the 35th President of the United States, and the former USSR sent the first man into space, Yuri Gagarin.
On the sporting side, Frenchman Jacques Anquetil won the Tour de France for the second time, and François Brohier won in the… 60th edition of the Prix d'Amérique thanks to Masina, a 5-year-old mare.
While the event will celebrate its hundredth edition on Sunday January 31, the oldest surviving winner of this World Trotting Championship remembers this last Sunday in January, in 1961 at the Hippodrome de Vincennes: “We started slowly. before approaching us, halfway, in the climb.
In the finish line, Masina finished at full speed to easily take the measure of Tornese and his driver, Sergio Brighenti, the idol of the tifosis.
Overjoyed, I did not hesitate to raise my whip as a sign of victory a hectometer from the finish.
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In the annals of equestrian sport
Aged 28, François Brohier then entered the annals of equestrian sport and allowed his uncle, coach Henri Levesque, to win the first of his five Prix d'Amérique, before the epic of the champion Roquépine (1966, 67 and 68) and the coronation of Upsalin in 1969.
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Accompanied by around thirty guests to celebrate his victory in a Parisian restaurant, the person concerned is apprehended by the King of cotton, Marcel Boussac, a wealthy textile industrialist and president of the Société d'Encouragement (formerly France Galop).
"He said to me:
I congratulate you, you rode
Rae Johnstone
(Marcel Boussac's first jockey)", confides the former young driver from La Manche.
Before specifying: “Rae was nicknamed the crocodile by the French racer for his way of practicing the waiting race at the end of which he gave the impression of swallowing his opponents.
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Named Masina in reference to "La Strada"
Proud of its chestnut champion, born in 1956 and whose name is a reference to Giulietta Masina, star of the film "La Strada", François Brohier never ceases to make the headlines.
“Thanks to Léon Zitrone and André Théron, Masina quickly became the favorite of France racer, so popular that she would start the following year, the favorite of the Prix d'Amérique.
But at 80% of her possibilities, she will finish only in second place when she was forced to make 25 m, something infeasible nowadays, ”he adds.
In any case, it is this mare, recognizable from afar by her yellow cap, who carried to the skies the winner of five Prix de Cornulier (mounted trot), now 88 years old and current president of the Seniors of the Races which brings together 150 former professionals from the world of trotters.