Run over a straight mile on Town Moor, Doncaster in October and open to two-year-old colts and fillies, the Vertem Futurity Trophy, formerly the Racing Post Trophy, was inaugurated, as the Timeform Gold Cup, in 1961. In the sixty plus year history of the race, Lester Piggott and Pat Eddery are, jointly, the leading jockeys, have ridden five winners apiece between 1966 and 1984, and 1976 and 1992, respectively.
However, the jockey who enjoyed a purple patch in the twenty-teens, which took him within one winner of his illustrious predecessors, was Sardinian-born Andrea Atzeni. Born on March 26, 1991, Atzeni began his career as apprentice to Marco Botti, the son of perennial Italian champion trainer Alduino Botti, in Newmarket as a 17-year-old. His first five seasons in Britain yielded 30, 47, 41, 55 and 54 winners, respectively and, in 2013, he was appointed stable jockey to another Newmarket trainer, Roger Varian.
Indeed, in October that year, it would be Varian who provided Atzeni with his first winner of the Racing Post Trophy, in the form of the Mastercraftsman colt Kingston Hill, who had not seen a racecourse until a little over a month earlier. A ready winner of a maiden stakes race, over 7 furlongs, at Newbury on his debut, Kingston Hill belied his inexperience by following up in the Group 3 Autumn Stakes, over a mile, at Newmarket and made it 3-3 when justifying favouritism, in taking style, at Doncaster.
In 2014, Atzeni rode the favourite for the Racing Post Trophy again, this time Elm Park, trained by Andrew Balding, who ran out a ready, 2¾-length winner. In 2015, though, he sprang a major surprise on the twice-raced maiden winner, Marcel, trained by Peter Chapple-Hyam, who was sent off the rank outsider of the seven-strong field at 33/1. In 2016, Atzeni completed his tetrad aboard 11/4 second favourite Rivet, a.k.a. Rivet Delight, trained by William Haggas.