Miguel Clement Prepares for Emotional Day at Pegasus World Cup

Son of highly regarded trainer sends out runners in a pair of Graded stakes

HALLANDALE BEACH, FL – Miguel Clement can chart his growth as a child not by the tape-measure markings on a wall, but by the winner’s circle photos inside his barn office.

For as long as he can remember, Clement often joined his father Christophe Clement for the obligatory winner’s circle photo when one of the French trainer’s horses prevailed in a big race.

“If you look at the pictures, a lot of the win pictures that we have in my office in New York, we have them with me as a little child,” Clement said. “You can see every few years me getting older and older.”

Some of those photos, he said, were shots taken after one of his father’s trainees won the La Prevoyante, a South Florida turf staple for fillies and mares that was first run at Calder Race Course and later incorporated into Gulfstream Park’s stakes schedule.

Christophe Clement won that race six times, more than any trainer.

And it’s why that, from now on, the race will be known as the Christophe Clement Stakes in honor of the highly respected trainer, who died in May. The newly rechristened race will be run for the first time Saturday on the track’s Pegasus World Cup card, and the Clement family will present the trophy.

“It will be a bit tough for the family, but we’re appreciative of it,” said Clement, who has taken over the stable from his late father. “It’s great that they named a race after him. I’m very appreciative for 1st Racing and Gulfstream for doing so.”

Miguel Clement, now 34, was still in diapers when his father, relatively new to the U.S. racing scene at the time, won his first La Prevoyante in 1992 with Sardaniya. He followed with more La Prevoyante wins in 1994, 1998, 1998, 2014 and 2022.

“Without a doubt, he loved that race,” Clement said. “It’s only fitting they named the La Prevoyante after him. It’s one of the races he really enjoyed.”

It’s for that reason that Clement wishes he had a horse running in Saturday’s $175,000 Christophe Clement Stakes (G3). He has several horses in his care that might have fit. But they are all either turned out for the winter or in light training for their 2026 campaigns.

“It’s a shame we didn’t have a runner this year,” he said. “But I didn’t want to change the horses’ programs or the itineraries we lined out for them, just to have a runner in the race.”

Despite the lack of a runner in the inaugural Christophe Clement, Miguel will still be represented on the card. He’ll be saddling Breath Away in the $1 million Pegasus World Cup Filly and Mare Turf Invitational (G2) and Summer Cause in the $225,000 William L. McKnight Stakes (G3), long the open-division companion race to the former La Prevoyante – both 1 1 1/2-mile events.

Christophe Clement won the McKnight in 1995 with Flag Down when it was held at Calder.

British champion jockey Oisin Murphy is being brought in to ride Breath Away for the Pegasus World Cup Filly and Mare Turf while Tyler Gaffalione will handle the reins on Summer Cause.

“She’s been in terrific form lately,” Clement said of Breath Away, winner of the Dance Smartly Stakes (G2) at Woodbine in October. “She has a proven good track record at Gulfstream and so we are cautiously optimistic.”

Summer Cause enters the McKnight off a win in the 2-mile H. Allen Jerkens Handicap at Gulfstream in December. The 6-year-old gelding will be shortening up in distance in the 1 ½-mile McKnight.

“He wants to go a distance,” Clement said. “It’s a touch dubious if he is quite the caliber to be as effective going a mile and a half. Nevertheless, there’s only one way to find out, by running him. Obviously, he’s done well at Gulfstream, he’s in good form, so let’s just try to strike while the iron’s hot.”