By Emmanuel Jeangirard
Photography: Courtesy GFE

Before becoming director of GFE, Brice Elvezi, now 42 years old, first worked for six years with the Selle Français studbook, where he notably contributed to the development of the body of judges, as well as national breeding competitions and championships.

He then served for three years as deputy director of PHI – a stallion distributor created a long time ago by Arnaud Evain – where he honed his skills before being entrusted with the reins of GFE, and its future, in 2016.

Q What essentially motivated the creation of GFE?
Being stronger together, and thus being able to sit at the table of major international structures or major operators, rather than acting individually.
For example, Paul Schockemöhle had an international development strategy that was quite hesitant with regard to the possibility of working with French people, until the day when we were able to sit down to a table with him and negotiate the marketing of some of his stallions. This was possible because he agreed to consider GFE – which would not have been the case for an individual player – and ultimately to operate with GFE’s pricing conditions.

Q What was difficult, what types of challenges did GFE encounter during this adventure?
To keep the initial spirit and motivated shareholders. It is a continuous task, more than a momentary difficulty. For 10 years, our objective has been to solidify each achievement and prepare for the future, such as after Kannan, for example. In a few years, who knows, maybe Candy de Nantuel or Untouchable will take over for GFE?

Q What did GFE bring to the table? What would you say it symbolizes?
From a collective vision, which is not the easiest at the moment... Nurturing a collective vision means thinking together, being able to provide common ideas, being on the ground to gather the feelings of riders, breeders... This does not mean that our role is, for example, to save the original SF. On the other hand, trying to keep Prestige Kalone in France (editor’s note: one of the few high-level Anglo-Arab stallions in showjumping), is an action that we have carried out and which serves the collective, which responds to an expectation of the collective... To read the complete article you need to be a subscriber

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