Luca Cumani: 'It was very unexpected - and I never saw the top of the mountain again after that'
Lewis Porteous talks to the dual Derby winner 25 years on from High-Rise's victory for an owner who would later spark the beginning of the end
Just when you think you've seen it all, 74-year-old Luca Cumani comes tearing up his driveway on a quad bike. Disappointed with himself that he is a few minutes late for our meeting, he is nevertheless in fine fettle – and why wouldn't he be?
Set among 360 acres of the finest vistas Suffolk has to offer, his Fittocks Stud on the outskirts of Newmarket is the safest of havens for its equine residents. The wonderful house Cumani has built there, on the other hand, is a slice of heaven on earth for himself and wife Sara.
Considering the serenity which surrounds us, it is perhaps a little foolish to ask if he in any way misses the cut-throat world he left behind when bringing a training career spanning five decades to an end in 2018, but it nevertheless sets us on our way after the Italian coffee has been served.
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Copy- 'You probably only get five proper darts at a big race each year, so you have to deliver - and I think I've got a massive chance'
- ‘I’ve never had to deal with that in my career and I did find it hard - you start asking yourself what you’re doing wrong’
- ‘I’ll be there to see the kids open their presents but then it’s a coffee, bang, out the door’ - life in a racing yard at Christmas
- ‘I miss the craic of going racing but it’s a young person’s game these days - and I don’t know how they survive, to be honest’
- 'I don't want to be part of this narrative that Irish trainers are better than us - I think that's rubbish, it drives me nuts'
- 'You probably only get five proper darts at a big race each year, so you have to deliver - and I think I've got a massive chance'
- ‘I’ve never had to deal with that in my career and I did find it hard - you start asking yourself what you’re doing wrong’
- ‘I’ll be there to see the kids open their presents but then it’s a coffee, bang, out the door’ - life in a racing yard at Christmas
- ‘I miss the craic of going racing but it’s a young person’s game these days - and I don’t know how they survive, to be honest’
- 'I don't want to be part of this narrative that Irish trainers are better than us - I think that's rubbish, it drives me nuts'