Francois Seremba, BComm 55, and his wife Yolande Seremba | Photo courtesy of the subject
“We’ve raced throughout North America and parts of Europe. We’ve been all over — from Florida’s Tampa Bay Downs to Belmont Park in New York,” says Francois Seremba.
The two met as children in the 1930s, when they were neighbours and bonded over their mutual love of horses and hockey.
“My father was a jockey and a trainer and my mother worked at Blue Bonnets,” he says, in reference to the racetrack later renamed the Hippodrome de Montreal and now closed.
His great-grandfather, Joseph Cattarinich, was the first Montreal Canadiens goaltender, playing during the inaugural 1909 season.
“It was hockey in the winter, horses in the summer,” says Francois Seremba, who played hockey for 14 years — a part of that at Sir George Williams University, one of Concordia’s two founding institutions.
“I’m really so grateful to the university for the athletics they offered. We had access to beautiful facilities.”
Though the Serembas had raised and trained horses through the 1950s, the endeavor took on a new level of seriousness after Francois Seremba’s 1955 graduation.
“After Concordia, I attended law school. That started to get in the way of racing horses,” he says. “The call of the racetrack was too strong. So I left.”
While his focus was training, he attributes a great deal of their success to breeding top-quality thoroughbreds.
“Yolande is a genius when it comes to breeding horses,” says Francois Seremba of his wife’s talent. “She learned from the best — Arthur Hancock — who owned Claiborne Farm, the largest horse-breeding operation in the U.S.”
Among their accolades, the Serembas’ horse Marquise Cut was named the best in New England in 1987 — an honour he calls a career highlight.
As breeders and trainers, the Serembas have had celebrity clients such as Bruce Norris, owner of hockey’s Detroit Red Wings from 1952 to 1982.
The once nomadic couple hung up the reins in 2008 and have settled in Oldsmar, Florida.