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Tell us about your life in business and how the skills transfer to endurance?
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the world How did you make the transfer to horses and endurance?
Carmine Villani used to be involved in motorsport as a racing driver – he switched from cars to endurance 12 years ago and now tops the FEI World Rankings, a first for a British rider. He tells Endurance GB how he got there…
You have gone from the speed of motor racing to endurance - tell us about your other sporting interests I used to be a track and field athlete and was a champion as a middle-distance runner at an incredibly young age. I won an athletics scholarship in the United States. I was also a racing car driver.
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In Texas graduate school I started riding quarter horses and thoroughbred horses. I picked up the love of horses from my grandfather and learned the tricks and bareback riding at a young age from him. I am a cowboy in spirit and no matter if you are living in jet set places, I like the approach based on what is real in life. I had been doing ultra-marathons and had heard about Arabian endurance and I became interested. I was doing 90km rides and started buying horses and winning national races in the US and in Italy. One of the biggest challenges I had coming from racing a vehicle was learning that a horse is not a car! You cannot rely on the team you have in the pit when driving cars and I realised I had to see things from a horse’s point of view so I started to race the 160km on foot alongside my horse to understand mentally and physically the experience the horse goes through.
Who inspired you to get involved in the sport?
It is a very democratic sport in which Kings and Royals participate and compete alongside people from all backgrounds and all ages.
I am a graduate of the university of Texas in Professional Accounting and Business Administration, a Certified and a Public Accountant in the State of New York and a Public Notary for the American Society of Notaries and I am the CEO of the MultiFamily Office Investments, a multibillion dollar investment platform, as well as Managing Director of the Global Family Office, and executive board member for Saudi Crown Holdings. I am also on the board of Tus Holdings the $130b technology and infrastructure Multifamily Office and Sovereign Wealth Funds globally. I worked with President Clinton in Yucaipa global partnership fund where I learned to create and build friendships and dialogue around the world and do business with your friends. What a great metaphor with the special relationship and partnership that we must build with our horses to compete and succeed together. And along these lines I learned to build partnerships and synergies in business that you also apply to this sport. Partnership with the horse in the first place. Then the crew obviously and the team.
What is your link to the UK that brings you to compete as a British rider?
I have lived in the UK for many years first in London in Notting Hill and then in West Sussex and I am proud to be riding for Britain and to be part of Endurance GB. I love the Downs where I live and Littlehampton because it is one of the warmest parts of the country! I am proud of the British people as they have a sense of values and speak for what is right and there is a sense of discipline in the sport of endurance here – a sense of belonging. Britain has also shown strong leadership in terms of safeguarding the welfare of the horse and bringing us back to origins of the sport.
