Marco Ghiani

Last updated

Marco Ghiani
Occupation Jockey
Born (1999-02-07) 7 February 1999 (age 24)
Oristano, Sardinia
Racing awards
British flat racing Champion Apprentice
(2021)

Marco Ghiani is a flat racing jockey, who was 2021 British flat racing Champion Apprentice. He is the retained rider for leisure tycoon Peter Harris. [1]

He started out riding for Luca Cumani in 2017, but joined the stable of Stuart Williams as apprentice when Cumani retired. [2] He had his first race rides in 2018, getting 1 second and 3 thirds from in 11 rides. Then, in 2019, he had his first winner, ending the season with 22 wins from 131 races. In 2020, it was 19 from 204.

In 2021, he became Champion Apprentice, topping 100 winners for the year and winning nearly £900,000 in prize money. During the season, he rode out his apprentice claim on 1 July 2021, winning on the Hugo Palmer-trained Surprise Picture. [2] His most successful partnership was with the Saeed Bin Suroor trained Real World, on whom he got his first Royal Ascot win in the Royal Hunt Cup, before following up in the Listed Steventon Stakes and Group 3 Strensall Stakes. [3]

He won fewer races in 2022, ending the season with 64, but among them were the Listed Premio d'Italia Tattersalls on Cime Tempestose and Queen Charlotte Fillies' Stakes on Soft Whisper, again for Saeed Bin Suroor. His career as "a rising star of the weighing room" [4] was not helped by a positive cocaine test following a race at Newcastle on 25 August. He was stood down in September, and his ban was backdated to then when handed out in November. [4]

In August 2023, a partnership with Harris's Mill Stream, trained by Jane Chapple-Hyam, brought him two big French races within a few weeks - the Prix Moonlight Cloud and Prix de Meautry. [3] Ghiani spoke of his hope of winning his first Group 1 on him in the Haydock Sprint Cup, but in the end, though disputing the lead briefly, he finished sixth. [1] He ended the season 56th in the jockeys' championship with 25 winners from 239 rides in the championship period.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frankie Dettori</span> Italian jockey

Lanfranco "Frankie" Dettori, is an Italian jockey based in England. In a career spanning over 35 years, he has been British flat racing Champion Jockey three times and has ridden the winners of 287 Group 1 races including 23 winners of the British Classic Races. His most celebrated achievement was riding all seven winners on British Festival of Racing Day at Ascot Racecourse on 28 September 1996.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pat Eddery</span> Irish champion jockey (1952–2015)

Patrick James John Eddery was an Irish flat racing jockey and trainer. He rode three winners of the Derby and was Champion Jockey on eleven occasions. He rode the winners of 4,632 British flat races, a figure exceeded only by Sir Gordon Richards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Hughes (jockey)</span> Irish jockey

Richard Hughes is a retired Irish jockey and current racehorse trainer who is based at Lambourn in Berkshire, England. Born in Dublin, he is the son of successful National Hunt trainer, Dessie Hughes. Hughes became British flat racing Champion Jockey in 2012 and retained that title in 2013, when he rode more than 200 winners in the season, and again in 2014.

Luca M. Cumani is an Italian thoroughbred horse trainer and breeder. He trained at Bedford House Stables in Newmarket from 1976 to 2019. He has trained a multitude of high-profile horses, including seven Classic race winners, two Epsom Derby winners in Kahyasi (1988) and High-Rise (1998), as well as a Breeders' Cup Mile winner in Barathea (1994).

Refuse To Bend was a Thoroughbred racehorse and sire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">High-Rise (horse)</span> Irish-bred Thoroughbred racehorse

High-Rise was a Thoroughbred race horse and sire, bred in Ireland, but trained in the United Kingdom, Dubai and the United States. He is best known as the winner of the Derby in 1998.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Buick</span> Norwegian-born flat jockey

William Buick is a Norwegian-British flat jockey. He shared the champion apprentice jockey title in 2008 with David Probert and won the Lester Award for Apprentice Jockey of the Year in 2007 and 2008. From 2010 to 2014 he was stable jockey to John Gosden. In 2015 he signed with Godolphin. Buick won his first Group1 race in Canada in 2010 and since then has won Group 1 races in England, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the United Arab Emirates and the United States. He has won four British Classic Races: the St Leger in 2010, 2011 and 2021 and the Derby in 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark of Esteem</span> Irish-bred Thoroughbred racehorse

Mark of Esteem was an Irish bred thoroughbred racehorse. In his two years of racing, he won four races and placed once from seven runs, with earnings of £365,139.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tobougg</span> Thoroughbred racehorse

Tobougg (1998–2018) was a thoroughbred racehorse and sire, who was bred in Ireland, but trained in England and Dubai during a racing career which lasted from 2000 to 2002. He was named European Champion Two-Year-Old Colt for 2000 at the Cartier Racing Awards. He was unbeaten in three starts in his championship season including two Group One races, the Prix de la Salamandre in France and the Dewhurst Stakes in England. He never won another race although he was placed in The Derby, the Champion Stakes and the Hong Kong Cup. He had some success as a breeding stallion and broodmare sire although he sired few major race winners.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Hanagan</span> English jockey (born 1980)

Paul Hanagan is a Classic-winning British flat racing jockey. Hanagan was twice been crowned champion jockey on the flat in Britain, riding 165 winners in 2011 to defend his title, having won his first title with 191 winners in 2010. Over a career spanning 25 years, he won a total of ten Group 1 races including the Epsom Oaks. From 1999 to 2022 he rode for the Malton-based trainer Richard Fahey, except for a four-and-a-half year break when he was retained by owner Sheikh Hamdan. He announced his retirement from race riding in August 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mastery (horse)</span> British-bred Thoroughbred racehorse

Mastery is a British Thoroughbred racehorse. In a racing career which lasted from October 2008 until 2010 he ran thirteen times and won five races. As a three-year-old in 2009 he won the Derby Italiano and the St Leger. In 2010 he won the Hong Kong Vase.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Doyle (jockey)</span> English racing jockey

James Doyle is a flat racing jockey. He is the son of former trainer Jacqueline Doyle. Since 2014, he has been one of the retained riders to Godolphin Racing in the UK, mainly riding horses trained by Charlie Appleby, but has announced he will ride for the Emir of Qatar from the start of 2024.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrea Atzeni</span> Italian-born jockey

Andrea Atzeni is a professional Italian jockey who was based in England for sixteen years before moving to Hong Kong. He was born on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia, where his father is a sheep farmer, and moved aged fifteen to Milan to work for Italian trainer Alduino Botti. Two years later he emigrated to England and joined the Prestige Place stables of Alduino's son Marco in Newmarket.

So Factual was an American-bred Thoroughbred racehorse and sire. He was bred in Kentucky by Khalid Abdullah and sent to race in Europe where he proved to be one of the leading sprinters of his time. As a juvenile he ran three times, winning on his debut and finishing second in the Coventry Stakes. In the following year he won the European Free Handicap but was well beaten in his next two races and was then sold and sent to compete in the United Arab Emirates. In 1994 he won three races in Dubai and was then returned to Europe in the ownership of Godolphin Racing. He reached his peak as a five-year-old in 1995 when he recorded victories in the Cork and Orrery Stakes and the Nunthorpe Stakes. He was retired to stud at the end of the year.

Thomas Edward Durcan is a retired, two-time British Classic-winning Irish jockey. He was champion jockey in the United Arab Emirates on seven occasions and rode over 1,000 winners in Great Britain in career lasting from 1992 to 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oisin Murphy</span> Irish horse racing jockey

Oisin Murphy is an Irish jockey based in the United Kingdom who competes in flat racing. He has won two British Classic and a number of Group 1 races. He was British Champion Jockey in 2019, 2020 and 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hollie Doyle</span> British jockey

Hollie Doyle is a British jockey who competes in flat racing. She set a new record for winners ridden in a British season by a female jockey in 2019. She came third in the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award 2020, and was also named The Sunday Times sportswoman of the year. In June 2022 she became the first female jockey to win a French Classic and the first female jockey to win a European Group 1 Classic when she rode Nashwa to victory in the Prix de Diane at Chantilly. In 2022, she came joint second in the Flat Jockeys' Championship, the highest result for a woman to date.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Marquand</span> British jockey

Tom Marquand is a British jockey who competes in flat racing.

Robert Hornby is a British jockey who competes in flat racing. Riding as a freelance, his four Group 1 wins, as of 2023, have been for trainers Andrew Balding and Ralph Beckett.

Royston Ffrench is a professional flat jockey. He was the 1997 British Champion Apprentice Jockey and has won multiple Grade 1 races in Europe and the Middle East.

References

  1. 1 2 Rennie, Matt (4 September 2023). "'It'd be great to get that Group 1 win' - Marco Ghiani out to repay owner's faith on supplemented Sprint Cup hope Mill Stream". Racing Post . Retrieved 26 October 2023.
  2. 1 2 Milnes, David (1 July 2021). "Apprentice Marco Ghiani joins the senior ranks after riding out his claim". Racing Post . Retrieved 26 October 2023.
  3. 1 2 "Profile: Jockey: Chris Catlin - Stats". Racing Post . Retrieved 24 October 2023.
  4. 1 2 Haynes, Jack (24 November 2022). "'A huge mistake' - Marco Ghiani banned for six months for cocaine positive". Racing Post . Retrieved 26 October 2023.