SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Coincidence introduced Valerie de Bona and Christophe Clement.It proved to be the serendipitous first step toward a marriage that brought them to America, where they raised their family and were partners in a Hall of Fame career training Thoroughbreds.Valerie, who laughs easily, chuckled as she described how an empty seat connected the 18-year-old students taking an econometrics course at Assas University in Paris.“Christophe randomly sat next to me in our college library and realized we were working on the same stat papers,” she said. “He politely engaged the conversation to discuss my notes. I was further in the questions to solve and, he recalled, far too 'competitive' to be helpful. He added his priorities were horses and going racing, and it did not mean anything to me. It should certainly have been the end of it that day, but destiny decided differently. It was simply the beginning.”More than 40 years after Christophe found a place to sit, Valerie will represent her late husband Friday when he is inducted into the National Museum of Racing's Hall of Fame. She brushed away a suggestion that it will be a bittersweet moment because he is receiving racing's highest honor 15 months after his death at 59 in May 2025 from a rare form of cancer.“I don't feel that,” she said. “Christophe was not even angry with the cancer. I would say he just shared. He came to America hoping to have a lovely life, and he kept saying, 'I didn't have a lovely life, we had a beautiful life.' So, if you look at this, everything is a plus.”Though racing accomplishments measured in numbers are the basis for election to a hall of fame, Valerie said that her husband's legacy goes well beyond his 2,576 victories that included 286 graded stakes victories, and $184 million in purses earned. The son of a successful French trainer who died when he was a young teenager, Christophe grew up in Chantilly amidst the sport. His racing education matured through working with the renowned French trainer Alec Head and his family, an internship in the U.S. with Hall of Fame trainer Shug McGaughey, and a four-year tour as an assistant to trainer Luca Cumani in England.“He had an immense talent, but he did not let his talent define him, because for him it was a gift that he enjoyed sharing,” Valerie said. “Sharing was a big part in his life, and he wanted his team to do well. For him, it was natural. He was the mentor of many young people, and when they got enough knowledge, stability, learned discipline and attention to details, then Christophe was generous and helped them fly away. That's why they all showed up at the celebration of his life from anywhere, wrote me endlessly, and that doesn't come from the list of wins on Wikipedia. That would not define Christophe.”Those minutes of whispered conversation at the chance meeting in the library sparked a courtship with people who had little in common.“I was just a math girl, not close to nature one bit,” she said. “If I left Paris, the periphery of Paris, every time I felt I'm doing an African safari, that level of knowledge with nature. So, it was the funniest thing that my husband could not be closer to nature, and me, I was just a very Parisian girl, in my cafe with my latest exhibition. In my little car, I was restauranting out. So, we couldn't be more opposite when we met.”Against the odds, their relationship flourished while she continued her course work for a Master's in Econometrics and he went off for a stint in America–she says as a groom, certainly not as an assistant–for McGaughey.“So, we were having a long love story, long distance,” she said, noting that it was a time before cellphones were commonplace and international calls were expensive.The Clements married four years after they met, and settled in Newmarket, where the Cumani stable was based. Their first child, Miguel, who has succeeded his father as the Clement Stable trainer, was born in June 1991. Three months later, the young family relocated to the U.S., to New York, to manage a tiny stable of horses imported from Europe.“We were very courageous,” she said. “Most people thought it was a mad idea, and we would come back to Europe within five years, to come back to our senses. And Christophe said, 'No, no. I have an idea. I could have a lot of Europeans coming and have a career in America. We could bridge the two continents.'”A week and a half ahead of his 26th birthday, Clement won with the first horse he saddled in his name, Spectaculaire, on Oct. 20 at Belmont Park. The 3-year-old colt had raced five times in Europe before that Belmont maiden triumph. The other seven horses that Clement started that year all had begun their careers in Europe. Only one of his five owners that year was an American, R.D. Hubbard.Valerie said two female runners helped her husband quickly establish his credentials.“What brought a lot of attention is when Christophe right away had won with Passagere du Soir (GB), and Sardaniya (Ire). His first year, he started winning big, and he put Passagere du Soir to run against the boys. And at the time, you didn't do that. Christophe said, 'Oh, she can beat the boys,' and the race was exactly what he wanted. People said, 'Oh, what a crazy Frenchman!' That's what started to bring all the attention to him.”French legend Andre Fabre was the trainer of record when Passagere du Soir beat males in the GII Tidal Handicap the day after Clement's debut victory with Spectaculaire. Her prominent French owner Paul de Moussac left her in the U.S. with Clement. Repeatedly facing males, she was second in the GIII Laurel Turf Cup Handicap, third in the listed Hialeah Turf Cup Handicap, won the 1992 GII Gulfstream Park Budweiser Breeders' Cup Handicap and was second in the GII Pan American Handicap.Sardaniya, bred and raced by the Aga Khan, joined the Clement stable after she finished third in the 1991 GII E.P. Taylor for British trainer John Oxx. She gave Clement his second graded stakes win in the 1992 GII La Prevoyante Invitational Handicap.In 1992, the growing Clement stable sent out 29 different horses. The number of separate starters doubled to 58 in 1993 and the stable topped $1 million in purse earnings.“I'm very grateful for the very first owners we had,” Valerie said. “You can have talent, but you need people at the beginning to just say, 'Okay, I'm going to be supportive, because after that it's up to you.' But you need this. I would say when you help young people, it's a generosity because you're unproven. After, it was easy to come to Christophe because then you know he had talent, but it is the people that saw a young couple with courage, a newborn, and said, 'Okay, I'm going to be supportive,' and that's generosity.”Clement had tremendous success with turf runners, topped by multiple champion Gio Ponti (Tale of the Cat), but showed his versatility with many winners on the dirt, too. An important moment came in the 2014 GI Belmont Stakes when Tonalist (Tapit) prevailed in California Chrome (Lucky Pulpit)'s attempt to complete the Triple Crown sweep.Through the decades, Valerie has been active in the family business, with logistics and financial planning. She is the co-owner of Chateau du Cheval, a design and merchandising company, and is a breeder and an owner.Christophe was found to have uveal melanoma in his eye in August 2023 and underwent what was thought to be a successful surgery. However, in Oct. 2024, he was told that the cancer had spread to many places in his body. The morning after his passing the family released a farewell post he had written.Thirty-four years after Clement won his debut, Far Bridge (English Channel) gave him a victory in the GII Man o' War in what was his final visit to the track two weeks before his death.“He took his last interview in the paddock, but he did not go for the win photo,” Valerie said. “I understood later he was saying goodbye in his own way, watching us on the side. It was his way of saying, 'You can do it without me there.'”When it is her turn on the stage at the induction ceremony, Valerie said she will work hard not to let emotion overwhelm her during her speech. Her remarks will touch on Christophe's many interests, including gardening and cooking, to show that his life was all about the horses, but not only about horses.“I do not think he would give anyone a list of races he won to represent his work, but instead he would talk about the excitement of having a barn full of horses ready to run, the team around him, some specifics about the week ahead,” she said. “He felt so fortunate and blessed in many ways. He never looked back much, as today was taking all his attention as well as dreaming of tomorrow.”The post Celebrating ‘A Beautiful Life’: Clement Posthumously Honored appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.