It was July 28, 2001, and the Meadowlands Racetrack, an East Rutherford race, in New Jersey, a few kilometres from Manhattan was about to compete in a trotto race. There were the Italian flags on the sides and a horse arrived on the other side of the Atlantic, which the Americans had never seen run live: that horse, which would become the greatest troctor of all time, was called Varenne and was about to dispute his first race in the United States.
Twenty-five years later, Varenne died at 31. The news was confirmed today, Tuesday, August 18, at ANSA by Giampaolo Minnucci, the driver who accompanied it in almost all his career. The Captain, as he was nicknamed, had been in an Eboli farm for a long time.
That American race remains one of the best ways to tell what had become Varenne in those years. In that 2001 he had already won the Prix d’Amérique in Paris, the Lottery of Agnano and the Elitloppet of Stockholm. America was missing.
In the United States, that July 28, 2001, Varenne was about to run the Breeders Crown Open Trot, one of the most important races of the North American trot, with a million dollars of prize money, of which 500 thousand to the winner.
The trip was not taken. According to a reconstruction of his American trip, it was the first time Varenne was on a plane. To wait for it there was a very strong heat and above all a run from a mile, different from those on which it was accustomed to running in Europe. The night before the race, however, rained and the temperature fell.
The Meadowlands also reached many Italian Americans. A chronicle published a few days after the race told the finish line accompanied by the throttle. There is an anecdote that makes the idea of what that race meant for many Italians: some fans would stop Enzo Giordano, owner of the horse, to ask him “Paisà, can we really beat the Americans? ».
It is one of those memories handed down over the years, difficult to check in contemporary chronicles. But it describes the climate of that evening: an Italian horse that first arrived in the United States and a part of the Italian American community of the New York area that had adopted it before leaving.
Then Varenne ran.
Minnucci took him in front and the rest lasted less than two minutes. Varenne gradually fell from the others and reached the finish line with four and a half lengths of advantage. The chronometer marked 1:51.1 on the mile, about 1’09′′1 per kilometer.
It was the new world record, as well as the record of the track and the Breeders Crown.
It is not only the Italian memory to describe that race as something exceptional. In its official 2001 season report, the New Jersey Racing Commission included the most memorable performance in Meadowlands history. That day also set the betting record for a Breeders Crown: over $7 million.
Varenne did what he came to the United States for. And he could have run again just a week later.
At Meadowlands, Nat Ray was scheduled, with another $500,000 prize pool. This time, however, they were not the opponents. It was the American fisco.
A Harness Tracks of America newsletter from the time explained that the tax arrangements applied to the transfer allowed the horse a first race without taxation in the United States. A second departure could have triggered the taxes retroactively, so on the $500,000 just won. There was a tax treaty between Italy and the United States that could have changed things, but there was not enough time to clarify the application before registration.
So the horse that had just beaten everyone gave up the second American race for a matter of taxes.
The connection with New York still had one last chapter. In 2010, Varenne was chosen to enter the Living Horse Hall of Fame of the Harness Racing Museum in Goshen, New York. The ceremony was held on 4 July, on the day of American Independence.
It’s been almost a decade since that night at Meadowlands. Varenne had in the meantime finished a career of victories in seven countries, records and travels around the world. But the U.S. had remained above all that race. First.
The one in which the Atlantic crossed, he found the tricolors waiting for him on the other side and hung a minute, 51 seconds and a tenth to become also a piece of American trotto history.
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