Sparks flew at York when Electrocutionist made it an Italian job

South Wales Guardian

a day ago

The last international raider to win the highlight of York's season, Electrocutionist – rather fittingly ahead of the latest renewal – had a Japanese star a neck in arrears as daring trainer Valfredo Valiani enjoyed the crowning moment of his career at a place he will always hold dear.
'They are great memories and I love York, it is a gorgeous racecourse,' said Valiani, who also enjoyed Group One success on the Knavesmire with Super Tassa in the 2001 Yorkshire Oaks.
'Coming from Italy we don't have up and downs, we have flat tracks and flat training centres, so York was just perfect.
'The welcome we got from the racetrack was great and everyone was so nice to us. I can't help but love York, as it is a place that has been so lucky for me.
'I have won Group races in Italy and France and England, but those wins at York are definitely the best achievements of my career.'
With Electrocutionist a champion in his native Italy, Valiani had long held ambitions of sending his nation's flagbearer on the long raid from his base in Pisa to Yorkshire.
However, it was while the colt was lodging with the Italian's compatriot and mentor Luca Cumani in the build up to his York date that excitement hit fever pitch, after Electrocutionist turned up the voltage under big-race pilot Mick Kinane with a scintillating piece of work on the Newmarket gallops.
Kinane would prove the final piece of the puzzle and after being given in-depth guidance on the eve of the Group One showpiece, Valiani's gladiator was ready for his showdown with Kazuo Fujisawa Japan Cup hero Zenno Rob Roy in the white-hot atmosphere of York's equine Colosseum.
'In May he won a Group Two in Italy and then he won the Gran Premio di Milano and straight after I said we're going to run in York and I was pretty sure he would do very well,' said Valiani.
'We went there with a lot of confidence because I sent the horse to England about a month before the race and he did a very nice piece of work in the lead up under Mick Kinane on the Al Bahathri.
'I spoke to Mick at the Bedford Lodge Hotel the night before the race showing him all the videos of his previous races.
'I was talking him through them, showing him where I thought the jockey was doing well or doing wrong. I think we probably spent an hour talking and I just told him to to wait as long as he could, but then during the race I couldn't help but think he had got him a bit too far back.
'He showed his class and won by a very short distance and when Mick jumped off he said 'I knew I was going to win coming round the bend' and I told him he should have called me as I have almost had a heart attack!
'He was a hell of a horse and it gave me great satisfaction.'
Valfredo Valiani, former trainer of the British Group 1 winners Super Tassa and Electrocutionist, studying the catalogue at the SGA Sale in Milan. pic.twitter.com/vkV0Hyveht
— Emma Berry (@CollingsBerry) September 21, 2018
With a mid-race health scare avoided and his greatest racing accomplishment secured, the Tuscan trainer's thoughts immediately turned to conquering Europe's most prestigious middle-distance prize, the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe.
Parisian dreams would ultimately be vetoed, with Electrocutionist instead heading to Woodbine's Canadian International for what would be his final start for Valiani in a spell that yielded six heroic victories and only two defeats.
Valiani said: 'After York I wanted to run in the Arc, I was pretty sure he would have been in the first two and I still don't think I was wrong, he could easily have done that.
'There were big discussions that lasted days and I ended up running him in a race in Canada and that is the only regret I really have with him that he didn't get to run in the Arc.
'The only race he ever lost in Italy, he was beaten a nose by Shirocco, and the ground was slightly soft that day and he didn't like that, he was a fantastic racehorse.'
Arc regrets will never diminish the Italian's achievements on the Knavesmire and a love affair that had begun four years prior to Electrocutionist's finest hour in Valiani's care, when outsider Super Tassa silenced the swarming grandstands with her shock 25-1 triumph in the Yorkshire Oaks.
That would be Italy's first Group One triumph in Britain since Marguerite Vernaut's successful sortie on the Champion Stakes in 1960, with the exploits of both Super Tassa and Electrocutionist ensuring Valiani's place in both Italian and Yorkshire racing folklore.
'I think I have the best strike-rate at York in Group One races,' quipped Valiani.
'Super Tassa was 25-1 and I chose Kevin Darley to ride her as she was a filly who liked to come from behind and having watched a few races at York thought he was the perfect man. He did a hell of a job.
'I remember when Super Tassa won there were only four people shouting – my great friend and my teacher Luca Cumani, the owner Cyril Humphries, myself and my vet. Everyone else wasn't talking at all because she caused such a shock.
'I love being a bloodstock agent, but I will never forget my training career which went on for 25 years and those days at York which were so lucky and so great.'
As for Electrocutionist, he would further advertise his class after Godolphin purchased him, winning the Dubai World Cup for Saeed bin Suroor and Frankie Dettori, before finishing second in both the Prince of Wales's Stakes and the King George VI And Queen Elizabeth Stakes.