Cristian Demuro on Ace Impact wins the French derby for the third time – Corriere.it

Now that Lanfranco Dettori is preparing to abandon gallop racing at the end of the year after a stellar career that has made him the face of horse racing even for those who had never followed it before, Cristian Demuro to collect his baton around the world. The thirty-one-year-old Roman jockey, who moved to France for years (leading country in the international gallop with England and Ireland) to escape the Italian horse racing crisis after having established the still unbeaten record of seasonal victories (264 in 2012), confirms the man-Derby par excellence. Not only in Italy, where he won the Derby alle Capannelle five times, already at the time soon ceasing to be considered the younger brother of Mirco Demuro (in turn at the top of the gallop in Japan), but now also in France: where today Cristian Demuro at the Chantilly racecourse in Paris achieved for the third time the success in the French Derby, the 184th Jockey Club Prix worth 1.5 million euros over 2100 meters on grass, keeping his 3-year-old French thoroughbred Ace undefeated Impact, bearer of the real estate developer Serge Stempniak in his first classic victory.

Mockery for the king of home pizza

The outcome could appear far from obvious for those who, seeing the favorite Big Rock at the start of the finish line in a breakaway with several lengths of advantage, had doubts about the metronome in the brain of Demur, who from the penultimate position moved his Ace Impact to the outside and began a comeback which, gradually flying over the other ten opponents, 100 meters from the finish line also caught the fugitive bearer of the Cuban entrepreneur Leopoldo Fernandez Pujals in an oxygen crisis, who had fled from Havana after the advent of Castro and then architect in Spain of a 300 million euro empire centered on the Telepizza home delivery chain. But this time the most timely delivery was that of Demuro, who, in addition to making a personal trio after the successes of 2017 and 2019, gave coach Jean-Claude Rouget the sixth seal in the classic.

Race records

For me he’s stronger than Sottsass!, Demuro comments enthusiastically comparing Ace Impact to the horse with which he won the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in 2020, the most important international competition for thoroughbreds of all ages and countries. And a judgment that is worth an appointment for the first Sunday in October, as well as already being a sentence from the chronometer: riding the son of the English stallion Cracksman (who in turn won the Epsom Derby and then the Arc) Demuro established in fact the new race record, 2’02”63, three tenths less than Sottsass in 2019.