The real dream came true on May 1st. Labor Day and Antonio Di Nardo’s celebration: “Winning the Lottery, for a Neapolitan, is like touching the sky with a finger”, the sweet words with his eyes wet with tears, caressing his Capital Mail. The same joy that his brother Gaetano, triumphant in 2010, had felt. Extraordinary stories of special families told in the latest book by Franco Esposito, sent to six Olympics, journalist and writer who knows how to range across every discipline with enviable mastery: “How is it it’s nice to go horse racing” (published by Absolutely Free), preface by Pier Luigi D’Angelo who presides over the Neapolitan racecourses and therefore manages Agnano. Subtitle: “Mythical horses and drivers with golden hands, from Varenne to Tonino Di Nardo”. Thirty years of trotting that resemble a novel, anecdotes and curiosities about a magical world that despite the crisis has gritted its teeth and raised its head again. From the current rivalry between Di Nardo (known to all as “Tony Young”, this year at his fourth Golden Whip) and Alessandro Gocciadoro (king of the Lotteria in 2022 and 2023 on Vernissage Grif) up to the legend Varenne, in fact.
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The volume begins right where the largest of all came into the world, the Zenzalino breeding farm in Copparo (Ferrara): “Born from a complicated birth, the ugly duckling then became a swan thanks to the intuition of the Roman driver Giampaolo Minnucci” . The chapters dedicated to the “Captain” (and to the owner Enzo Giordano, to the coach Jori Turja) who we would all like to see again on the track are moving. As in the memory of Amérique 2001, the prestigious Parisian classic in January: “Welcome to the frost. Varenne is enchanting with these temperatures. And the new but profound love for the Italian horse warms the hearts and bodies of ten thousand Italians in the stands of the racecourse located in the twelfth arrondissement and in the heart of a spectacular forest. Operational since 1863, it can accommodate up to eighty thousand spectators. But there were many more at the mega concerts of Pink Floyd and Michael Jackson. A portion of the plant is occupied by Italians. Flags, tricolor scarves, songs and shouts, we are here for Varenne. Ten thousand voices ready to sing the Italian delirium, if the god of horse racing wants. And so he wants it, there is almost no rush. Varenne dominates, a sensational and unforgettable spectacle, the crowded French competition crushed along the 2700 meters of the route which remains complicated, difficult, requiring a notable effort made of continuous changes of pace. Varenne makes them all black, a charcoal colour, just like the surface of the track at the racecourse”. A success that will be repeated in 2002, one among many other pearls given by the trotter who owes his name to… Paris: rue de Varenne is the address of the Italian Embassy in France. In the words of Albert Einstein, whose quote appears on the back cover of the book: “You cannot love a car like a horse. The horse makes us feel emotions that machines cannot give us.”
