ANDREA Atzeni was walking out of the weighing at Doncaster to ride a favourite on a big Saturday card. This was what the teenager from Sardinia dreamed of when he left home more than a decade before. Now all he could think of was the nightmare of the previous 40 minutes.
Atzeni had won the 2015 St Leger on Simple Verse only to be disqualified after a stewards’ enquiry. The enquiry had been televised and the sight of the distraught young man slumped on a bench in the jockeys’ room would have brought a tear to a glass eye.
There were tears in Atzeni’s eyes as he waited for that next race to start but he knew he had a job to do.
“I never thought I was going to lose the race,” Atzeni said: “I couldn’t believe it and I was so upset. This was a Leger, not an everyday race. But once the stalls opened for the next race I just had to get on with it. It’s what I get paid for and there’s no time to feel sorry for yourself. And I won, which helped a bit.”
Justice was done when the Simple Verse team won an appeal and Atzeni will be hoping to win the William Hill St Leger for a third time on Saturday when he rides Defoe.
Indeed, that crushing afternoon aside, Doncaster has played a large part in Atzeni’s career. He won his first Group One race in Britain when Kingston Hill prevailed in the Racing Post Trophy in 2013, a race that the jockey has won each year since. Kingston Hill returned to Doncaster to win the St Leger in 2014.
“It just feels different when I walk into Doncaster,” Atzeni said. “I feel like I can win on anything.”
Not too many would have rated Defoe’s chances as a Classic contender when he tailed off in the Zetland Stakes at Newmarket last October, although history was to prove that this would be an above average renewal with Wings of Eagles, the subsequent Derby winner, in fourth.
“He was probably a bit immature physically and the ground was a bit too quick,” Atzeni said. “The boss [Roger Varian] and Sheikh Obaid [the owner] decided to put him away and it has paid off.”
Defoe began this season by winning two handicaps and then stepping up in class to win both the Listed Glasgow Stakes at Hamilton and Group Three Geoffrey Freer Stakes at Newbury.
“He’s just been a different horse and we think he’s improved again since Newbury,” said Atzeni, knowing full well that Defoe will need to.
Atzeni has ridden both Stradivarius and Crystal Ocean this year and knows Capri, trained by Aidan O’Brien, is just the type to keep motoring all the way up the long home straight at Doncaster.
“My horse needs to improve again because he’s going up in grade but that’s all he has done all year and he’s going there with a big chance,” he said.
“He reminds me a bit of Kingston Hill. They both like a bit of cut in the ground and both are very laid-back. You can put him anywhere in a race – he’s very straightforward with a great mind.
“We know he stays because of the way he won the Geoffrey Freer. He’s won on good ground but ideally he’d like soft ground and we could be racing on that with the rain that’s been forecast.”
There were no bold forecasts from Atzeni but he will walk out of the weighing room at Doncaster full of confidence and hoping for a dream ride.
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