The horse that belongs to a town

In these days in the Italian press and also on the most important Italian newscasts, including those not specialized in harness racing, there is news about a special horse and his family or, to put it better, me and my family.

The horse is called Gougeon, and he was born on May 13, 2022, from Oropuro Bar (Love You) and Appia (Varenne); in fact, he is Varenne’s nephew.

My family and I, on the other hand, have thought of a project that is new for Italian horse racing, even if not completely new elsewhere.

The idea was to divide Gougeon into 100 parts like fractional ownership, giving preference as shareholders to the inhabitants of our town, Galliera Veneta, a small town north of Padua which overall has about 8,000 inhabitants.

It started as an idea resembling a stroke of lightning, you know of those things that come to your mind and you don’t even know why, the project immediately aroused great interest in our area and beyond.

There was not even the time to talk to some friends, and immediately some newspapers and televisions rushed to our farm curious to know what we were talking about.

What immediately caught the eye especially to non-experts or, better to say, non-experts in harness racing, it was the fact that Gougeon is the nephew of Varenne, the greatest trotter of all time. In fact, Gougeon’s mother is called Appia and was born of Varenne and Giberna Del Rio who was in turn a daughter of Lemon Dra.

Focusing on the purely technical aspect, we can state that the blood of the champion and winner of the Italian Trot Derby, Lana Del Rio, also flows in Gougeon’s veins. Perhaps this was the right interpretation to tell people about Gougeon and make this project of considerable interest to our people: “Gougeon is Varenne’s nephew”.

If, on the other hand, it had been told simply for its genealogy, perhaps no one would have understood and listened to our desire to do something great for our community.

It is very interesting how all this seems to be a project born almost by chance but it is as if someone was guiding it: when I bought Appia, which was carrying Gougeon in its belly, the purchase was not planned.

I bought the mare at an online auction actually exceeding the budget I had set for myself. However, I carefully monitored a mare which, in the catalogue, was found before Appia, but without being able to buy her.

I couldn’t leave the auction empty-handed, and so when Appia’s turn came I bought it despite spending more money than I wanted, but to tell the truth, I had been studying it genealogically for a few days: in short, it wasn’t a purchase randomly done.

I was thrilled by the paternity of Varenne and the great solidity of the female line. Gougeon is the first son of Appia, a morphologically perfect horse who continues a bloodline featuring two international trot champions: Gougeon in fact has Love You in the paternal line and, as previously mentioned, Varenne in the maternal line.

But let’s go back to explaining our project: the idea that suddenly came on like a light bulb in my head on the last Sunday in January, the day when the Grand Prix d’Amérique was being held and I was watching the race from the sofa at home I wondered why in France a race was run in front of 40,000 spectators while in Italy the racetracks are gradually emptying out.

Here I understood that there was a need to create a popular project, capable of bringing people together even those who do not attend trotting races, to make them understand what potential our sector has and what it means to establish a relationship with the horse.

At this point the project will proceed with pre-established milestones and deadlines: first of all, in the next few weeks Gougeon will leave our stable to go to the BI. GI Stable in Pontoglio near Brescia, a large place where he will be able to run in large paddocks and above all in a group made up of many other horses of the same age, an important factor in completing the growth, something that our small stud farm cannot guarantee both for reasons of space and because having only three mares it is not materially possible to compose a herd of young foals.

After what will be the growth phase, towards the end of September this year, Gougeon will be transferred to Altedo in the stables of Lorenzo Baldi where he will begin preparation to embark on what one hopes will be a glorious racing career.

So, what were the final results within our town? Well, we sold 80 of the 100 shares right away. We kept it inexpensive at just 80 euros for a share and each month each shareholder has to pay their share of the training and stakes fees. Will 100 shares the monthly bill will not be too bad.

The final 20 shares may be sold to townspeople and Filippo’s family may keep some of the shares.

It was wonderful that so many townspeople came forward to become a shareholder, some of whom never thought they could ever afford to own a part of a racehorse. It will now be a job to keep them all informed on how the colt is doing, but it will be a job I look forward to doing. Let’s hope the colt makes the races!

If you have any questions or story ideas for Filippo Lago, please email him at lagofilippo0@gmail.com.

by Filippo Lago, for Harnesslink