BREEDER

Italian horse breeding is renowned for its excellence at the worldwide level, founded on rich long-standing tradition and culture inspired by the works and research of Federico Tesio.

Breeding constitutes the founding basis of the entire horse racing sector: through a careful selection of the best stallions and the best mares, aims to achieve on-going improvements in foals to increase the value, and not merely the economic value, of the horses selected for racing.

For trotting races as well, Italian breeding has achieved levels of excellence, and in fact there exists a specific breed of Italian trotting horse.

OWNER

These are the owners of the stables, who are duly registered – each stable has its own symbol and univocal colors – and their investments constitute the cornerstone of the horse racing industry.

Each owner decides which horses and how many horses to purchase, to which trainers to assign them, which races to have them compete in, with which jockeys or drivers. It is not rare for owners to also be breeders.

TRAINER

Passion, patience, capacity to “understand” every single horse. A trainer has to have all of these traits. He must literally teach each horse how to run to the best of his ability, teach the fastest and most effective trot step, understand what type of terrain and what distances are the most suited to a gallop horse. His eye, experence and dialogue with the jockeys allow him to define all preferences for each horse, and in other words whether he prefers sprint distances of 1,000 meters or “long-distance” of 2,400 meters, if the horse does best running in front or charging ahead from the back at the decisive moment, if he prefers to run on perfect terrain or if his endurance renders him unbeatable on long distances or if he is more suited to level/flat racecs or hurdle races.

Perhaps a trainer does not necessarily have to know how to “whisper” to a horse, but he must certainly know how to listen to him.

VETERINARIAN

The well-being of the horse is the first and foremost priority: the veterinarians have the task of monitoring the horses’ state of health and fitness and, where necessary, they intervene with the most appropriate therapies. In this case as well, an infinite level of sensivity is needed: a human patient can talk to his physician about his state of illness, which body part is in pain or discomfort, while a veterinarian must understand this on his own, on the bassis of his experience with and knowledge of horses.

At every racetrack, during the race days, veterinarians are in attendance to verify that each horse, before making his entrance on the track, is perfectly capable of running, and to check the actual identity of each horse. Other veterinarians are in charge of performing checks and taking antidoping samples.

JOCKEY

During gallop races, he sits on the horse’s saddle and guides the horse during the race. These are professionals who have completed a specific apprenticeship along with on-going specific athletic preparation. The jockeys, in the vast majority of vases, are engaged “for each race” by the owners, and often a jockey mounts the same horse in order to have a better understanding of his characteristics and racing habits.

Before each race, in the saddling circle, a last meeting is held among the owner, trainer adn jockey: it is at this moment that the tactics to follow during the race are decided, which the jockey must adhere to scrupulously. It is the jockey who has the task of understanding whether or not a horse is capable of continuing a given race and, therefore, whether to slow down or withdraw the horse where necessary. During the races, the jockeys always wear jackest and caps having the colors of the stable to which the horse belongs.

DRIVER

He is the equivalent of the jockey, but in the case of trotting races, he sits behind the horse, on a special seat called a sulky. Once in cases of mounted trotting races, he sits in the horse’s saddle and in this case is called a jockey, like in gallop racing.
In trot racing drivers are often also the owners and trainers of the horses.

Unlike in the case of gallop racing, the trot drivers always race with jackets having the driver’s colors and not the colors of the horse’s stable.

LEVEL/FLAT RACES

So-called “level/flat” gallop races are held over various distances, usually ranging between 1,000 and 3,600 meters. The start takes place through the opening the gates of special cages where the horses enter together with their respective jockeys, to await the starting signal given by the starter.

The start takes place along various points of the course, based upon the distance of each individual race.

The races are moreover classified on the basis of their importance: the main ones are the so-called pattern races or group races, which are fundamental for purposes of the genealogy and development of the breeding farm.

The races to sell or to reclaim are those of a lower category which involve horses at the end of their career or younger horses which have not yet attained particular results but which may have potential that has so far not been expressed.

HURDLE RACES OR STEEPLE CHASES

These are hurdle races, and the difference in the name depends upon the type of hurdles placed along the route:

– Hurdle races: hurdles that are all equal, having a minimum height from the ground of approximately 110 cm; they are constructed so as to be, in part, crossed by the horses

– Steeple chase races: these are more challenging, since hurdles of different heights and depths are placed along the route, and one or more water hurdles or double hurdles(oxers) may also be present

The hurdle races or steeple chases are much longer than level/flat races (they may exceed 5,000 meters) and involve different types of horses with respect to those used in flat/level races. Only in hurdle races, in addition to thoroughbreds, halfbreds coming from a specific selection and classified as “aqps” (autre que pur-sang, “other than thoroughbred”) may participate.

TROT RACES

In the trot, which is the intermediate gait between walking and galloping, the horse proceeds by resting his hooves diagonally and simultaneously: the back right with the front left, the back left with the front right.

The use of the “sulky”, the seat attached to the horse on which the driver sits, is a characteristics of trot races. There also exists a “mounted trot”, where horses run with jockeys in the saddle but this discipline has virtually disappeared in Italy, while it is very widespreaed in France and is gaining popularity in Sweden.

In trot races, the horses reach a speed of up to approximately 55 km/h, and run distances ranging, in general, between 1,600 and 2,400 meters: in rare cases, they run greater distances, such as, for example, in the Prix d’Amerique, which is the most prestigious trot race in the world, which is run every year at the Paris racetrack Vincennes over a distance of 2,700 meters.