Leger hero who’s talk of the Town at Doncaster

SARDINIAN born, he arrived in Newmarket from Milan at 15, with a handful of possessions and not a word of English.

Andrea Atzeni’s back story has many parallels with Frankie Dettori’s early career.

Like his celebrated compatriot, the 26-year-old is now a fixture among the jockeys’ elite of his adopted country.

But today at Doncaster Atzeni will take the leg-up on Defoe in the final Classic of 2017, the William Hill St Leger, bidding to add to a feat so remarkable, even Dettori can’t match it.

Since the start of the 2013 campaign, Town Moor has hosted seven Group 1 races and Atzeni has won six of them.

“People ask me, ‘Why is your record so good at Doncaster?’” says Atzeni. “I wouldn’t have a clue. Maybe I’m on the best horses. Maybe it’s my lucky track.”

There are the two St Legers, aboard Kingston Hill and Simple Verse – the latter snatched from Atzeni by the racecourse stewards, but reinstated on appeal – and four straight scores in the Racing Post Trophy.

But it’s not just Doncaster.

Last month, the rosy cheeked Italian, who doesn’t seek to mimic Dettori’s flamboyance – there’s a brooding in his dark eyes – booted home four winners on the first day of Glorious Goodwood and seven days ago he took Leopardstown’s Irish Champion Stakes aboard

25-1 shot Decorated Knight.

The young Atzeni – his father Guiliano farms sheep and mother Rita works as a nurse – had little appetite for study, leaving school at 15 to work for legendary trainer Alduino Botti in Milan.

A move to Botti’s son Marco in Newmarket followed months later and, at 17, Atzeni began riding as an apprentice in 2009.

“Just before I lost my claim [in 2010], I got sacked from Marco’s,” recalls Atzeni. “I gave a couple of horses bad rides and the owners weren’t happy with me. I had to move on.

“I was freelance for about a year – it was the hard way to learn – trying to make a living out of the game, which is very, very hard.

“I thought, ‘I’ll give it another year.’ But that was going to be my last year – if things hadn’t turned out as I wanted, I’d have gone to America.”

But in 2011 poor health forced Michael Jarvis to bring his distinguished training career to an end.

Jarvis’s protege Roger Varian took over at Kremlin House and Atzeni badgered agent Paul Clarke to phone the new trainer.

“I just wanted to ride nice horses – even in the morning,” he remembers. “Roger didn’t even know who I was.

“But within two years, I’m going from riding work to riding nearly all of his horses.”

By the time he’d landed his first British Group 1, on Varian’s Kingston Hill in the 2013 Racing Post Trophy, Atzeni had also been riding for countryman Luca Cumani, partnering 20-1 shot Emirates Queen to victory in the Lancashire Oaks – his first mount for Defoe’s owner, Sheikh Mohammed Obaid Al Maktoum – four months earlier.

Qatar Racing turned to Atzeni when Jamie Spencer announced his short-lived retirement from the saddle in August 2014.

But, after riding Sheikh Mohammed Obaid’s Postponed to capture the King George VI And Queen Elizabeth Stakes the following July, he left the Qatar role to sign up with the sheikh, by now stabling all his horses with Varian after a split from Cumani, in October 2015.

“Sheikh Mohammed Obaid has been a very good supporter and it would be great if I could win a Classic for him,” adds Atzeni before delivering a bullish assessment of Defoe, the one-time handicapper who lines-up for the oldest Classic on the back of success in Newbury’s Geoffrey Freer.

“He’s kept improving and he’s turned out to be a very good horse. He’ll like the trip and he’ll love the ground.

“The only question mark is whether he’s good enough, but I think I’ve got a massive chance.”