Luca Cumani: a consummate professional who excelled in every aspect of his trade

Luca Cumani was in the vanguard of a sublimely talented generation of Newmarket trainers during the closing two decades of the last millennium.

The former medical student from Milan built up his Bedford House empire to become one of the most potent stables in the business. He has excelled in every aspect of his trade, although he always preferred to bring forward his horses without undue haste.

The fact Cumani rarely saddled top-class two-year-old winners was entirely by design. In his debut season in 1976 he sent out Sunny Spring to win the Windsor Castle Stakes at Royal Ascot. And his memory of what should have been a landmark occasion? “It was a time when I didn’t know any better,” he said with a deadpan expression.

Cumani is one of 16 practising trainers to have won the Derby – and one of just four to have won it more than once. However, beyond his raw achievements, those who followed the sport when he was in his pomp will remember the danger of opposing one of his horses in a big race. The prospect of throwing enough darts until one stuck filled Cumani with horror; he was a man who took specific aim, often with unerring accuracy.

Early on in his career Cumani terrorised a succession of official handicappers by the astute placement of his horses. They would embark on long winning streaks, never by very far at a succession of lowly venues, until Cumani would finally turn them loose at a long-established target.

No valuable handicap was safe. From 1984 he plundered the Extel Handicap at Goodwood in three successive years with Free Guest, Fish ‘n’ Chips and Chinoiserie. And in 1986 he took Dallas on a victory march that included the Britannia at Royal Ascot, where the horse bolted before the start, and Cambridgeshire.

Among Cumani’s ground-breaking triumphs, a personal favourite was Barathea’s scintillating victory in the 1994 Breeders’ Cup Mile at Churchill Downs. Three days before the race Cumani was the personification of misery when Barathea drew stall one.

Barathea: overcame dreadful draw to triumph under Frankie Dettori in the 1984 Breeders' Cup Mile

He had persuaded the colt’s joint-owners, Gerald Leigh and Sheikh Mohammed, to stump up a supplementary entry fee of $120,000, and he believed the money had been wasted with the coffin-box draw.

But Barathea, under an inspired ride from Frankie Dettori, settled in the daunting shadow of front-running Lure, who was bidding for a third successive victory in the Mile, before Dettori accelerated away to win by three lengths.

Cumani then encouraged Dettori to perform his signature act for the very first time: the flying dismount patented by New York’s iconic jockey Angel Cordero. Cumani and Dettori had been dinner guests at Cordero’s house two nights earlier; Cordero had ridden the Cumani-trained Embla to win the Cheveley Park Stakes in 1985.

Cumani’s sharp sense of humour will also be much missed. At Longchamp on Arc trials day 20 years ago, he was asked who he expected to emerge best from a day when the three trials featured multiple runners from the stables of Godolphin and Andre Fabre.

“I expect it to come down to a match between Allah and God,” he jested, “and I expect God to win.” It was a rare misjudgement from Cumani: Godolphin’s horses bettered Fabre’s in every race.

Perhaps the measure of Cumani as a trainer is that his accomplishments made it seem as though he had an inexhaustible supply of top-class young prospects to call on at the end of each season. Yet that wasn't the case: he never had first call on yearlings bred by the Aga Khan and Sheikh Mohammed, among other high-profile owners he trained for.

He did, however, train all of Sheikh Mohammed Obaid’s horses until the Dubai-based owner moved them out of Bedford House three years ago. Cumani’s prowess was such that the sheikh will find it hard to match what his former trainer achieved for him.

Members can read the latest exclusive interviews, news analysis and comment available from 6pm daily on racingpost.com