Butcher's Bets

The concrete floor of the slaughterhouse in the Parisian suburb of Arcueil was drenched with gore. Steam rose from the still-warm entrails of slaughtered horses. The next beast led toward the block sized up the grisly situation with terrible clarity. Its nostrils flared; its eyes rolled wildly. Screaming, rearing and kicking, it nearly brained a butcher with vicious swipes of its hoofs. The boss of the abattoir, Marius Auteroche, 52, a roly-poly little man whom all Arcueil knows as un roublard (a sharp operator), instantly decided that this horse had too much spirit to be slaughtered. He would use the beast to make another kind of killing.

The horse that Butcher Auteroche so nobly saved turned out to be an 18-month-old thoroughbred named Fanfaron IV, sold to the slaughterhouse when its owner gave up on a losing venture in the horse-breeding business. It was not the first time that a French race horse had come to the end of a career on the chopping block. In a country where many people have developed a taste for steaks and stews that used to whinny instead of moo, prime horse cuts bring a dollar a pound at the boucheries chevalines -- a tempting thought for racehorse breeders burdened by feed bills.

Fanfaron IV was snatched from the butcher, carefully trained as a steeplechaser. He got his first big chance in the Prix des Landes at Enghien, Belgium last spring. He won. All season long, Fanfaron IV ran scared. In eight races he finished first four times, second twice. He earned 4,000,000 francs. Last week in the Prix Georges Brinquant at Auteuil, Fanfaron won once more and put another 2,000-000 francs in his owner's pocket.

Such success at the track sharpened Butcher Auteroche's appetite for live horseflesh. Last month he spotted another likely winner: a neurotic chestnut trotter named Fabliau, given to temper tantrums and the quaint habit of kicking his racing rig to pieces. After paying 80,000 francs for the horse, Auteroche spared him from the butcher's pistol, had him gelded instead. "The operation," he says proudly, "was a complete success. Fabliau is now so gentle he's a household pet. For company we've let him have a cow as a stable mate. I think the cow has a homey, comforting influence that makes him happy." Last week, Fabliau trotted off to Chantilly to begin training. "Ah, my little eunuch," said M. Auteroche, "how you have suffered. But you will be a winner."

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