Julien Epaillard

Julien Epaillard: talent, passion and a super stable

by Luca Paparelli

Everything, or just about, over the past six years… Up till 2019 Julien Epaillard had been a top professional, a talented rider highly appreciated for his qualities but not well known outside France despite a two-decade international career and the nickname ‘the flying Frenchman’ for his skills in time trials: «I could have won a lot more if sometimes I had gone slower,» he has often said. Raised at his parents’ Cherbourg stables, Epaillard had shown great talent from the start and it had taken him to win individual gold and team silver at the 1996 Young Riders European Championships in Klagenfurt and again team bronze at the 1998 European Championships in Lisbon.

Everything, or just about, over the past six years… Up till 2019 Julien Epaillard had been a top professional, a talented rider highly appreciated for his qualities but not well known outside France despite a two-decade international career and the nickname ‘the flying Frenchman’ for his skills in time trials: «I could have won a lot more if sometimes I had gone slower» he has often said.

Raised at his parents’ Cherbourg stables, Epaillard had shown great talent from the start and it had taken him to win individual gold and team silver at the 1996 Young Riders European Championships in Klagenfurt and again team bronze at the 1998 European Championships in Lisbon.

As a senior rider, he continued to do well in his sporting career but without achieving any major results, until the turning point came when, at the age of 40, he started riding Caracole de la Roque. Since then he has risen to international prominence. Indeed, up till 2022 Epaillard had not competed in a senior championship and was not viewed as a pillar of France’s top team, but thanks to this jumper he started winning high-level competitions, gaining position after position in the FEI rankings where he reached second place, also competing at the Herning World Championships.
In early 2023, Caracole de la Roque was sold to US rider Karl Cook, but the sale of this super mare did not cause the French rider any problems given that he already had in his stable Dubai du Cedre and Donatello d’Auge, with whom he has become one of the world’s top show jumpers.
Then, after the Paris Olympics, Dubai du Cedre too was sold, this time to Deborah Mayer, boss of the Iron Dames team, but again without any serious consequences other than the highly rewarding promotion to first horse of Donatello d’Auge, an enviable progression in the stable and in competitions.
But the French champion has always kept his head: «I have been lucky enough to have good horses and people who believe in me. For my part, I try to follow the horses’ lead, everything I have done with them has been what they were capable of doing. If in the future I only have horses suited for two-star CSIs, I will still be happy and compete in two-star competitions. At the same time, if I drop to 30th place in the rankings, it won’t kill me. I don’t think about ranking points, I plan my horses’ activities according to the feelings they give me. This is still enough for me, as it has always been».