Marco Scarton and the feeling called Elitloppet

Harness racing trotting fans from all over the world await the big race in the next few days of the Elitloppet 2023, a race that will be uncertain and as always very qualitative.

We therefore could not fail to interview an important owner of Italian racehorses who already have a good relationship with the classic Solvalla race as one of his standard bearers has already written his name in the Elitlopp.

We are talking about the Italian Marco Scarton, owner of Ringostarr Treb. It must be said even before starting our chat that Ringostarr Treb can be defined as a “homemade jewel” by Marco Scarton.

In fact, he was also the owner of the mother of Ringostarr Treb or, Farsalo Egral. In some interviews released by Scarton himself to the technical press, his will was to send Farsalo Egral years ago to the Trebizond breeding with the agreement that he would choose the stallion for the first two years.

“The first year is Classic Photo was chosen, and Ringostarr Treb was born immediately, Scarton explained”.

A story that seems to have been written even before starting. In fact, Ringostarr Treb subsequently took to the track for the colors of Marco Scarton and his partner.

In this regard, Marco Scarton continues: “The horse was tamed in Padua by Franco Cardin, now what is a proven practice. Once the taming was over, the horse was transferred to Fausto Barelli where it remained for a short time before being transferred to Holger Ehlert who managed to do an excellent job with him, slowly bringing him to demonstrate the means he possessed.”

That owner who responds to the name of Marco Scarton and who does not come from a family of horse racing origins, by his own admission. In fact, his story begins when he was still a boy playing in a football club affiliated with Inter and went for the first time to the racetracks when he was about fifteen years old.

He has much more to tell and that much more to tell has a perfect connection with the story we are living in these days, about a week after the Elitlopp took place, he who won the great race di Solvalla with his Ringostarr Treb.

After a third Sweden Cup bid in 2016, Ringostarr Trebb joined Jerry Riordan’s Stable in the summer of 2017, and really started rising to fame. Riordan, American born and of Elitloppet fame with Mack Lobell 30 years earlier as assistant trainer to Hall of Famer Chuck Sylvester, had Ringostarr Treb ready for the Elitlopp.

“It was May 28th, and it was a real apotheosis,” Scarton said. “We arrived at that appointment with a lot of confidence, the horse had recently won the Olympiatravet in 1.10 over the distance of 2100 meters setting the European record and, on that occasion, we received the invitation to Elitloppet.

“If I have to be honest,” Scarton explained. “We also had a lot of confidence in the drums. The starting number was good, and this certainly worked in our favor so much that the horse was able to take the lead and from there to manage the race until the end.

“After the first heat we had even more confidence for the final,” Scarton added. “In fact, Ringostarr Treb has always been a very intelligent horse and between one race and the next he always knew the right things to do, and this led him to be even stronger in the second race than in the first. It was the same for the final as the horse won the race by trotting the Solvalla mile in 1.09 and leaving behind really important and very qualitative horses, I’ll just give the example of Propulsion.”

The second part of our chat with Marco Scarton dwells on an aspect that has been fundamental in Ringostarr Treb’s life: the development of his career as a stallion.

Marco Scarton and his partner Giovanni Pino in fact, had the happy intuition of collecting the semen of the horse while it was still exercising its competitive activity.

We wrote just a few lines above, that it was a happy intuition and, in a few lines, Scarton himself sees that “smart move” after a few years, summarizing it like this.

“It gave us the opportunity to open the market,” Scarton said.

But what does all this mean? To understand it, it is sufficient to analyze the numbers starting from an initial datum, either for the authorship of Classic Photo, which has not left excellent memories in Italy, or for the fact that Ringostarr Treb was physically quite small, the fact is that in Italy it was seen very well at its debut in the breed.

In fact, his first children were born in 2017 and we are only talking about a couple of specimens. The following year, however, the music changed in a short time: in 2018, in fact, despite the number of births not reaching ten units, the horse was able to highlight his talents by giving life above all to two mares who were also able to frequent the classic Italian circuit.

Cometa Petral and Chris Ever Treb. The first one was born from a cross with La Brunetta, a daughter of Enjoy Lavec while the second one, is a daughter of Letter Bomb Treb, who is a broodmare also born out of Enjoy Lavec.

Numerically and qualitatively, the number of Ringostarr Treb’s children has grown year after year in Italy so much that in 2019 there were more than ten births and above all the demand from the foreign market has grown more and more as some European countries have requested the horse sperm.

We are talking about Germany, Holland, Belgium and also Denmark. Returning to the production of 2019 in Italy, numerical production has been growing as already mentioned and the arrival of further results has also followed at the same pace.

In fact, from that generation, Dorothy Bar from the mare Tiffany Bar (Love You) and Dylan Dog Font from Ola Bi (Pine Chip) were also born, both classic winners in Italy. Even more interesting was the 2020 vintage which saw some excellent horses present themselves, some even on the international scene.

We are referring, for example, to Eminem Font who, by winning over 100,000 euros, is the three-year-old horse with the highest sums won in Italy, and Escobar Fi, with the latter who will be at the start of the final of the Breeders Course on the day of the Elitlopp in Solvalla.

It is still too early to say anything about the future of the letters F which for Italy represent two years. Voices behind the scenes speak well of Fil Ek brother of the classic Chance Ek, Fiammetta Bar, Frisee KB Font and Fefé Joyeuse, but for reasons of space we have to stop here hoping to reserve a future article for these young hopefuls.

by Filippo Lago, for Harnesslink

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