By Bill Finley
Jerome Lermyte wanted to be more than just a jockey. The 30-year-old Frenchman wanted to see the world and saw a riding career as his ticket to do so. In his passport, you'll find stamps from the U.S., Canada, France, South Korea, Australia, Switzerland, Germany, Macau, Malaysia, Mauritius and a few others.
“That was my dream before I even thought about riding horses,” Lermyte said. “Seeing the world and traveling. France is such a small country compared to the rest of the world. I wanted to do more than ride in France. I wanted to see the world and I felt that way since I was very young.
“Everywhere I was going, I was winning. Anywhere I went, I wanted to succeed. I didn't want to just be a tourist there. I did very well in Macau. But I still didn't want to stay in one place. I wanted to move around, see new places and learn.”
But his years of wanderlust have at last come to an end. Thanks to an in with the Mark Casse stable, Lermyte is staying put, riding at Woodbine through most of the year and Fair Grounds during the winter. Though not Cassse's No. 1 rider, he gets many quality mounts from one of the nation's top trainers and has learned to be content with seeing Toronto and New Orleans and not much more.
Lermyte attended the French jockey school in 2004 when he was just 16 and made his riding debut a year later. Like many young French riders trying to get started, he found out how difficult it can be to break in. French racing is dominated by a handful of major stables who have contracts with major riders. The rest fight for the scraps. Lermyte did have an association with the Aga Khan's stable, but would only get to ride for them when stable rider Christophe Soumillon was not available.
In 2010, he decided to pack his bags. His first stop was Mauritius. As he attempts to go over the chronology of the various countries that he had stopovers in, even he sometimes can't keep track. Did he go to Macau before Korea or Korea before Macau?
“I enjoyed all the places I rode,” he said. “They all had their own different charms and beauty. Everyone of them had something about them that you would love. All the experiences were great and everywhere I went I learned something and discovered something.”
The time came, however, where Lermyte figured out he'd be better off sticking to one place, establishing a reputation and finding a stable that would back him, knowing that he wasn't going to stay for a year and then head somewhere else.
He came to the U.S. in 2015 and won his first-ever race here, at Sam Houston. He was close friends with Florent Geroux and Geroux convinced him to come to Arlington and said he would help him get established. He won 27 races in the U.S. in 2015 and looked like he was on his way. But 2016 was a disaster. He was kicked by a horse and spent most of the year trying to get healthy. He won just three races.
In 2017, he connected with Casse and won 26 races, but no stakes. Casse uses many riders at Woodbine, and Lermyte was primarily getting the weaker horses in his stable. That was pretty much the case at the beginning of 2018, but Lermyte kept plugging away and Casse's confidence in him grew. He won 37 races, including seven stakes.
“He is very loyal and also a top trainer,” Lermyte said of Casse. “He will pick the best jockey to do to the job. If you watched the early part of the Woodbine meet, at first I was only riding longshots. For him, that's normal because he had two main riders, Gary Boulanger and Patrick Husbands. But I started winning stakes for him and from there he started to give me more mounts because I was delivering good results. By the end of the year I was riding many of his best horses.”
He is so pleased with how things have gone at Woodbine that he has put away his world atlas.
“I'm not that same kid that wants to see everything,” he said. “I've seen most of the best racetracks in the world. I'm happy where I'm at and I love Woodbine.”
Had Lermyte tried to ride in North America 10 years earlier, he probably wouldn't have had much success. With the influx of riders coming in from Latin American countries, trainers, at first, weren't paying attention to the handful of riders coming here from France.
Julien Leparoux was the first to break through. Then Florent Geroux, after struggling mightily at the beginning of his U.S. career, took off. Flavien Prat was next. The three are now all considered top 10 U.S. riders.
“One thing that I know from traveling all over the world, if you don't get that chance, you will struggle,” he said “You need to have somebody with a good stable to back you. When Flo got here, he was not popular. Trainers weren't used to giving someone named Florent with a French accent a shot. They were much more likely to go for Latin riders. They didn't know anything about the French riders. One hundred percent, those guys made it easier for me. They helped me get a chance, but once you get that chance you have to deliver.”
Having now settled down and riding for Casse and other top Canadian trainers, he has set his sights on winning major, Grade I races, even a Breeders' Cup.
It can happen. Just don't go anywhere.
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