Giovanni Atzeni known as Tittia entered the history of the records of the Palio di Siena today with five consecutive victories
Giovanni Atzeni known as Tittia he triumphed in today’s Palio di Siena, the so-called Palio di Provenzano, and entered the history of the centuries-old event of medieval origin for being the first jockey to take home five straight winsbut Tittia has managed to make his own 10 victories since he started participating in the Palio di Siena in 2003.
Born in 1985, John Atzeni made his debut at the great event in the Tuscan city in 2003 with the nickname of Tittia, which in Sardinian dialect means “how cold” and which is linked to when, just 18 years old, he arrived in the stables of Luigi Bruschelli. On those cold Tuscan mornings, the young Italian-German said “Tittia”, because he was cold and that word stuck to him.
The family
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Son of a Sardinian father and a German mother, Tittia speaks several languages, often goes to see the races abroad and he trains with his 14-year-old son, which will probably be his heir. He practices every day on horseback and twice a week he works out in the gym. This time he ran with Violenta Da Clodia for Contrada della Selva.
The third victory with the Selva
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This was the third time he had won for la Selva. The first victory was in August 2015 with Polonski, then in August 2019 with Remorex which however arrived shaken. July 2, 2023 is the second consecutive time that he wins with the same mare, Violenta da Clodia, with which he had triumphed in August 2022 for the Leocorno district.
The other victories
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The victories collected by Tittia during his long experience at the Palio di Siena there are many more, ten to be precise: three for l’Oca with Fedora Saura in July 2007, with Mississippi in July 2011 and with Guess in July 2013, then the same year in August he won for l’Onda with Morosita Prima, in July 2019 for the Giraffe with Tale and Which and in July 2022 for the Dragon district with the horse Zio Frac.
Giovanni Atzeni: private life
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Atzeni moved to Sardinia when he was 11, then to Nurri he made his debut at 13 in Bitti, in a Sardinian palio, with the written authorization of his father, a bricklayer by profession, but with a passion for horses. The man had brought German horses from Germany to his land and was training them to prepare them for the Sardinian Palios. Right from the start being a jockey became a profession for Giovanni Atzeni, who in any case had started riding as a very young boy in Germany, thanks to his father. He has four sisters. His partner is from Siena, her name is Ilaria and she made him a father very early, at 23, when the firstborn arrived Matthias.
How much Tittia earns
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It’s hard to quantify the earnings of a jockey, also because Tittia, like his colleagues, obviously doesn’t only run the Palio di Siena, but also other races during the year. As for the most important Palio, the jockey has a guaranteed minimum wage and if he wins he can even earn half a million euros.
Not only. While the jockey is on the track, he has a sort of budget that is made available to him by the contrada for which he is competing and he can bargain with the other jockeys, offering them money based on the strategy suggested by the captains, both for the running horse , and to hinder the horses and jockeys of the rival contrada in the event that it is also in the race. In general, however, the jockeys are always hired for tokens for every single race, obviously Tittia is one of the most important in the sector and therefore one of those who earns the most.
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