Rising Star Banned for Shadow Trainer Operation

One of the rising stars of the Chantilly training ranks has been banned from all racing activities for six months in a tale of family intrigue and mistrust centered on a shadow training scheme set-up under the name of an 80-year-old trainer.

Andrea Marcialis was handed the ban at an appeal hearing in Paris Dec. 17 as disciplinary stewards upheld findings that he and his sister Elisabetta had run an operation under the name of license-holder Jean-Claude Napoli.

Highlighted by the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud (G1) victory of Way To Paris in June, Marcialis has enjoyed his best season since relocating from Italy to France in 2017, and is sixth in the trainers' championship. 

The unusual charges stem from an August inspection by France Galop officials of Napoli's training premises in Cabries, some 500 miles south of Marcialis's base in Chantilly. Twelve horses formerly connected to Marcialis or his owners were found at the property, five of whom were not registered as being in training with Napoli. 

Among the grounds on which his appeal rested, Marcialis claimed he had been taken advantage of by people he trusted and that he had misunderstood "administrative subtleties" in the French language. 

Marcialis characterized a situation whereby his sister Elisabetta had "taken advantage of Napoli's age" to train horses under his name and at his premises in Cabries, but that he himself had nothing to do with that setup.

Legal counsel for the defense described the wider Marcialis clan in striking terms, with Milan-based trainer Antonio and his son Andrea "getting on with their jobs," while Elisabetta was "a black sheep in the family" whose way of doing things improperly "should not be shouldered by Andrea."

A third sibling, group 1-winning jockey Jessica Marcialis, was not implicated in the case and did not give evidence. 

The defense also referred to Napoli's evidence that he deeply regretted showing weakness in handing the log-in details of his France Galop trainer's account to Elisabetta after she alone had asked to rent boxes from him.

One key piece of evidence in the original Nov. 27 hearing was that Andrea Marcialis had a request for boxes at the Cabries training center in June rejected by France Galop stewards.

Asked during the appeal to explain such a request, Marcialis claimed that Antonio had pressured him into making the application, and described his sense of relief when it was turned down, although his father had been "extremely vexed" by the decision.  

The appeal stewards also probed Marcialis on the apparent lack of billing sent out by Napoli to any owners connected with the horses nominally under his care, before coming to the same conclusion as the original disciplinary panel. 

In addition to Marcialis being banned from training and owning horses between Jan. 1-July 1, 2021, the panel also upheld similar suspensions on six other ownership entities, including Elisabetta Marcialis.