{"id":182608,"date":"2025-10-07T01:40:22","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T01:40:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/182608\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T01:40:22","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T01:40:22","slug":"varennes-driver-heading-to-wdc-in-new-zealand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/182608\/","title":{"rendered":"Varenne’s driver heading to WDC in New Zealand"},"content":{"rendered":"

7 October 2025<\/p>\n

, News<\/a><\/p>\n

, WDC25<\/a><\/p>\n

A significant driver change has been confirmed for the upcoming World Driving Championship to be held around New Zealand this November.<\/p>\n

Italian representative Antonio Simioli has withdrawn due to personal reasons and has been replaced by Giampaolo Minnucci, the driver who gained fame and world-wide success with superstar Italian trotter Varenne.<\/p>\n

Known as the Il Capitano (The Captain), Varenne was acclaimed as the greatest trotter in harness racing history, earning a record $US8.7m, with 62 wins from just 73 starts. He was also the only horse to win Horse of the Year in three different countries – Italy, France and the USA.<\/p>\n

As his regular driver Minnucci played a critical role in Varenne’s success. Among their greatest performances was the win in a new world record at the 2001 Breeders Crown at The Meadowlands in North America and their two wins at Sweden’s great race, the Elitloppet in 2001 and 2002.<\/p>\n

Italy has won the WDC twice before in its 55 year history \u00a0– Roberto Andreghetti in 1997 and Guiseppe Guzzinati (1972).<\/p>\n

The WDC starts in just over three weeks with 10 of the globe’s best drivers, including New Zealand’s representative Blair Orange, \u00a0battling it out at Kaikoura (November 2 and 3), Cambridge (November 5), Addington (November 7), Winton (November 9) and finally on IRT New Zealand Trotting Cup day at Addington on Tuesday, November 11.<\/p>\n

To see more on the WDC go to wdc25.nz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"7 October 2025 , News , WDC25 A significant driver change has been confirmed for the upcoming World…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[3004,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-182608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-racing","tag-racing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}