Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Trainer riding tall
Venezuelan exile has a personal stake in derby.
In the strife-torn country of Venezuela, horseracing rivals baseball as the nation’s most beloved sport.
Kentucky Derby day is a highly anticipated and widely celebrated day in the republic. Canonero II, a horse with deep connections to the country, is still revered, 46 years after his Derby victory.
Trainer Antonio Sano is hoping to rekindle that sense of pride in his homeland — which he fled for good seven years ago after the violence that has permeated every facet of Venezue- lan society came too close to home.
Sano will saddle Gunnevera in Saturday’s $1 million GI Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park. The Kentucky-bred colt will go to post in the 11-horse field as the early 9-5 favorite. Barring injury or another unforeseen circumstance, Gunnevera will proceed from the race to Churchill Downs. But first, Sano would love nothing more than to see his pupil capture the most prestigious racing prize on offer in his adopted South Florida home.
A third generation horseman, Sano began his career in 1988. With 3,338 victories, he remains the all-time winningest trainer in Venezuela to this day.
However, as he was piling up
the wins, the political climate in Venezuela began to darken, giving rise to organized criminal activity that ultimately infiltrated racing. As most money in Venezuela is wagered illegally, “horse mafias” have gone as far as poisoning the animals and kidnapping jockeys and trainers in the attempt to fix the outcome of races.
Sano experienced this horror first hand — on two separate occasions. The first time Sano was kidnapped, he was held for a matter of hours before his freedom was secured. That ordeal was enough for his wife, Maria Christina, to speak her mind.
“Every day, my wife would tell me, ‘We need to leave here,’” Sano said.
On the evening of July 23, 2009, Sano noticed an unfamiliar SUV parked in front of his house. The following morning as he was leaving for work, the SUV appeared again.
Seven armed individuals then exited the vehicle while Sano was in his car. They smashed his windshield and forcibly took him into the SUV. Sano was placed in restraint chains and held by his captors for 36 days.
Once again, ransom was arranged and Sano was freed. This time, Maria Christina would not entertain discussion about staying.
Sano considered moving to Italy, where he has family, to resume his career. However, the trainer had professional connections already established in South Florida, so the decision was made to move his family to Weston.
Sano took up residence on the backside of what was then known as Calder in 2010 and started to build his barn claiming horses. One year later, he had 22 horses in his stable and had won the trainer’s title at both the Calder and Tropical-AtCalder meets.
As his barn grew, Sano started to accumulate graded stakes victories with local runners Devilish Lady, Grand Tito and City of Weston. His biggest score to date would come at the 2015 Keeneland September yearling sale when a son of Dialed In caught his eye.
Sano said he works within a range between $5,000 and $40,000 when he goes to a sale, so when Gunnevera went under the gavel at a very reasonable price he was more than pleased.
“When he went for $16,000, I said ‘oh good,” he said. “He looked good when he was walking. He looked happy and he had a very large stride.”
Sano purchased the horse for Peacock Racing Stables, a three-man operation that includes Guillermo Guerra, an engineer who also moved his family to South Florida 2 ½ years ago out of concern for the deteriorating situation in Venezuela.
The outfit, which owns one other horse besides Gunnevera, is made up of Guerra, his father-in-law Solomon Del-Valle and his business partner Jaime Diaz from Spain. It was DelValle, who still lives in Venezuela, who convinced Guerra to trust Sano with his investment.
“Antonio was the one that made us buy the horse,” he said. “With his great experience, he had the vision to see the champion in Gunnevera.”
After Gunnevera broke his maiden at Gulfstream in his third career start in July, Sano sensed he was ready for a big step up in class. One month later, with Venezuelan and current jockey Javier Castellano in the irons for the first time, Gunnevera showed his late-running style by passing all four rivals to win the Grade II Saratoga Special Stakes by a length.
Following a fifth-place finish in the Breeders’ Futurity, where Sano said that he didn’t take well to the soft Keeneland track, Gunnevera more than redeemed himself by circling a 10-horse field to score a 5 ¾ length win in November’s Delta Downs Jackpot.
Since then, Gunnevera has been on the Gulfstream path to the Triple Crown, with a second place run in February’s Holy Bull and another 5 ¾-length, last-tofirst win four weeks ago in the Fountain of Youth.
Sano feels that the longer distance of Saturday’s 1
1⁄8-mile Florida Derby will play into the hands of his pure closer – whom he calls the best horse he has saddled since he left home for his safety and to chase the dream collectively shared by a country he had no choice but leave behind.
“What makes Gunnevera so good is everything that surrounds him,” Guerra said. “He has already made a great impression in our county because he is owned by Venezuelans, trained by a Venezuelan and that he is ridden by a Venezuelan.”