by Karsten Bønsdorf, USTA Senior Newsroom Correspondent

Forty-three-year old Italian trainer/driver Alessandro Gocciadoro dominates the trotting scene in Italy and on Sunday (Sept. 23) he had a banner day at the Agnano track in Naples, where he trained the winners of the Italian Derby, the Italian Oaks and the Open Trot.

Gerard Forni photo

Gocciadoro’s stable has captured 190 races from 589 trips to the gate and earned $2.995 million this year.

In fact, Gocciadoro brought 21 trotters to the races and they earned a total of $1.2 million on the day.

In the Derby Italiano for 3-year old trotters, Gocciadoro was behind the favorite Zidane Grif, who easily went to the lead, but with a half-mile to go Zidane Grif went off-stride and was disqualified.

But Gocciadoro had other horses in the race, and down the stretch it was Ze Maria and Zlatan from his stable, who battled it out.

Zlatan driven by Giampaolo Minnucci proved to be best and won the 1-5/16 mile event in 1.56.1f followed by Ze Maria.

In the Oaks Gocciadoro was also behind the favorite, Zabriskie Ok (sired by Conway Hall) and Zabriskie Ok won very easy in 1.55.4f over the mile followed by stablemates Zealand As (Donato Hanover) and Zona Ok (Varenne).

In the Group II race, the Gran Premio Freccia d’Europa, Gocciadoro, behind Arazi Boko, had to settle for second behind stablemate Super Star Reaf ,driven by Antonio di Stefano, both timed in 1.54.3f.

Gocciadoro’s stable has won 190 races from 589 starts with earnings of $2.995 million this year which is more than $1 million than Gennard Casilo, who is second on this list.