Picchi Joins France’s Italian Renaissance

PICCHI JOINS FRANCE’S ITALIAN RENAISSANCE 
by Sue Finley 
The Arqana sales sheets have, in recent times, begun to take on a distinctly Italian flare. In Monday’s catalogue, however, one of the names on the sellers’ side, Haras du Grand Lys, is typically French, but hides very Italian roots. 
Paolo Picchi, a 40-year-old native of Tuscany, relocated his business to the Normandy coast for the 2012 breeding season seeking new markets for his products. Monday, he will offer lot 557, Beccamon (Ire), a half-sister to the GI Woodbine Mile winner Becrux, in foal to Kendargent and lot 674, Reyal (Ity), a two-time listed winner in Italy, in foal to Orpen. 

In Italy, Picchi ran the 500 acre Azienda Abbadia Ardenghesca near Grosseto, where he stood the stallions College Chapel, Geri, Until Sundown, Orientate’s half-brother Johnny Red Kerr, Group 2 winner Giovane Imperatore and 2005 Italian Derby winner De Sica. 

In making the move to France, Picchi decided to get out of the stallion business, and to transition from boarding and consigning to breeding for himself. 

“The reason to go to France was to reach a new market,” said Picchi. “I was in a situation of breeding for others. And I want to breed for myself.” 

Picchi said at first he did not intend to make racing a living, despite his familial roots in the sport. His father was a small breeder and owner, with a few mares, and his uncle, Raffaello Picchi, was the president of UNIRE for nine years. 
Picchi attended the races with his uncle as a teenager and was struck with the beauty and the lifestyle. Like his father, he decided to make racing his avocation, and not his vocation. 

“I was a gentleman rider, an amateur jockey, but my goal in life was to be a building engineer, which is what I studied at university. I did not want to work with horses. My father is a building engineer and my father’s passion was only as owner, and not as a professional.” 

But his plans changed when he met his wife, Julia, a veterinarian who grew up in Pienza. Ultimately, they opened shop in 2004 with the stud farm and mare boarding business. 

But soon, they began to envision broader horizons outside of Italy. 

“We considered three possibilities,” he said. “Ireland, England and France. Julia’s former teacher worked at the Curragh, and England because Newmarket was the best of the best, and the third possibility was France.” 
The only hitch was that Picchi knew only three words in French. “Excusez-moi,” and “pardon.” 

“But Emmanuel de Seroux, who I met thanks to my friend Paolo Romanelli, said to me, ‘don’t worry about the language. You will go to France and we will grow the breeding program. It’s a fantastic country to raise a good horse.’” 

They made the move in 2011 while their daughters, Caterina, now 11, and Sofia, now 8, were still young enough to be uprooted. “It was pretty much our last chance to change their entire lives, because when they’re older, they have made friends and it’s difficult. Now, after two-and-a-half, three years, it’s perfect.” 

They settled in Grandcamp Maisy, leasing a farm on some of the most hallowed land in the world, between the D-Day invasion beaches Utah and Omaha, and just a mile and a half east of Pointe du Hoc, a promontory with a cliff overlooking the English Channel which was taken by the U.S. Army Rangers early on D-Day, while the landing beaches were shelled by a battery in Maisy itself, subsequently taken by the Rangers June 9. 

“Because of the proximity to the D-Day invasion beaches, a lot of my friends have reached out to visit me,” he said, saying he finds the story of the Rangers the most moving. “A lot of people know about and talk about Utah Beach and Omaha beach, but people don’t know the history of the Rangers, and the sacrifice they made. Without them taking Point du Hoc, the invasion might not have succeeded.” 

History aside, it’s also a great place to raise racehorses. 

“Emmanuel and others said it was a fantastic place for breeding. We leased it, and have done nothing to change it. It was perfect. The paddocks are incredible, as is the quality of the grass. The structure of the farm is typically Norman–very solid. It made it very easy for me to start from here, but I think the next year, two years, I will move to both a bigger farm and nearer to Deauville.” 

While he owns 10 mares right now, the two he’ll sell this week are for outside clients. “I am,” he explained, “the reference point for a lot of Italian breeders in France. A lot of breeders want to pursue the French market, which is very strong now.” 

But there’s only thing Picchi says he wants to pursue. It’s not commercial success, or a big payday at the sales. “The reason I came to Normandy was to breed a champion. Not for money, not for other things. The reason is to create a champion.” 

As they say in his adopted country, “Bonne chance, Paolo.”