Luca Cumani ended an agonising run of Group One seconds that has gone on for 18 months and been spread across the globe and Presvis, the racehorse who turned it all around, brilliantly confirmed his potential at racing's highest level at Sha Tin yesterday.
Presvis emerged from a sizzling second in the Dubai Duty Free on March 28 to overwhelm Hong Kong's best middle-distance racer Viva Pataca and left the John Moore-trained star with no excuses.
Cumani, the famous Italian-born horseman who is based at Newmarket in England, has won feature races all over the world and was also the handler of Falbrav, hero of the 2003 Hong Kong Cup and accepted as the highest-rated performer in the 30 year history of Sha Tin racecourse.
But he is also the only trainer to have won the three jewels of the Asian circuit - the Japan Cup, Hong Kong Cup and Singapore Airlines International Cup - to which he yesterday added the HK$14 million Audemars Piguet Queen Elizabeth II Cup.
Cumani has come through a horror run, with his elite horses having racked up a frustrating sequence of six placings at Group One level, beginning with Purple Moon in the 2007 Melbourne Cup and going right through to last month's Dubai World Cup meeting.
'It's been a challenging time, with so many Group One seconds but it's nice to finally have the monkey off our back,' Cumani said.
'When he [Presvis] won the Heritage handicap at Newbury I thought he might develop into a Group One horse and in Dubai, he confirmed he was worthy of competing at this level. Well today, he's arrived.'
