Ferrari’s prancing horse emblem was inspired by the Royal horse breed called the Persano. This is a breed known for its fighting spirit. But it almost died out completely; almost became extinct but has been saved by Sicilian Prince Prince Alduino Ventimiglia di Monteforte.
Alduino is a former champion showjumper and after he had rescued the breed through a near lifetime work, and negotiated their return to the fields of their ancestors – a military base and former royal hunting lodge – he wept. He said: “I wept for an hour this morning. I have achieved my life’s work. I’ve given everything I had. They are the best warhorses in history. They were bred by the kings of Naples. They’re so brave, they can jump anything. They can gallop for miles; they don’t need much food. They are so good, that after Napoleon faced them in battle, he started using them himself.”
The fame about this horse breed appears to come from a 1942 charge against the Russians near the Don River in south-western Russia. The horses showed immense bravery. There were about 700 of them and even after being shot they galloped on.
Count Francesco Baracca was a First World War fighter pilot. He owned a Persano horse. A painting of the horse was on the side of his aircraft. He was killed in action in 1918 and his mother told Ferrari: “Put them on your cars and you will win like my son!” That, I believe, is the beginning of the Ferrari emblem.
And I’m told in a Times article that, “The horses also won at the Olympic Games in the 1960s.”
The Italian army used the Persano horse but then decided that they would use them no longer when mechanised armaments came along. There was also a problem with funding. As I understand it, this was the beginning of the possibility of their extinction.
Alduino entered the Persano story in 1981. He saw some horses of this breed grazing in a field at a cavalry base in Grosseto, Tuscany, Italy. He said: “A strange sensation came upon me, as though there was something very familiar, but I wasn’t sure what.”
He was looking at the last survivors of the breed and then discovered that the direct descendants of the warhorses were being crossbred. This would have ended the bloodline of this breed if that process had continued. Alduino decided to save them.
He realised that he was in a hurry as the horses were getting old. There were difficulties breeding old horses and he had to battle with Italian bureaucracy. Another obstacle was that the breed’s homelands are in an area of organised crime.
Most of the remaining Persano horses were still owned by the Italian army but they were uninterested in continuing the breed. Alduino said that there were so disinterested he thought they were being obstructive.
He had to track down each horse at auction and he bought them with his own money. He said that he bought and bred 80 horses over 40 years to imply that he has spent a lot of money and effort in saving the breed.
He bought five mares and then two stallions which the army were refusing to breed. The obstruction from the army was indicated when a commander had all the male offspring gelded from a stallion that was ideal for breeding.
Alduino ended up buying 30 horses but then he had to find a place to put them. He said that he ended up begging the mayor of a village in Sicily to put the horses in a field. He had given the field to the village years before.
Gradually his work gained recognition and in 2007 the Persano was registered on the UN critical breeds list. The horses were being appreciated for their agility and speed. And a Persano horse won a gold at the 2020 Olympics for three-day eventing.
The Italian government agreed in 2018 that he could keep the horses at Carditello, the hunting Lodge originally built for the kings of Naples where the breed was shown off in the 18th century.
And the tourists love the horses at that location. Unfortunately, they had problems with the local crime bosses trying to steal the horses.
He had to move them. As I understand it, the horses were relocated to an area of Italy called Persano. It is hoped that they will reinvigorate the Persano Royal Palace. Prince Alduino owns the entire breed thanks to his long-term work and expenditure. He only sells geldings and he wants to maintain their biodiversity he said.
I would like to add a few words taken from the Persano horse website. Yes, they have a website dedicated to this horse breed. They start by saying that this “prized breed of state horses [was] born in 1744 by the will of King Charles of Bourbon.”
The horses were bred with the aim of establishing a Royal cavalry of high prestige, the website says. The horses were bred to have “resistance, courage and elegance.”
I understand the website to say that the Persano breed’s foundation horses were a gift of four Turkish stallions from Sultan Mahmoud II.
In 1787, Ferdinand IV wanted to breed the horses of the Royal Race of Persano. At that time, they were already famous for being the best warhorses of the time.
