Federico Tesio

Federico Tesio (17 January 1869 – 1 May 1954) was an Italian breeder of Thoroughbreds for horse racing. He has been called "the only genius ever to operate in the breeding world" and "the greatest single figure in the history of Italian racing". Born in Turin, orphaned at 6 years of age, Federico Tesio obtained a degree from the University of Florence. He served in the Italian Army during World War I and in 1939 was appointed to the Italian Senate. In 1898, he and his wife Lydia Tesio purchased a silk worm farm complete with thousands of Mulberry trees. These were removed and a guest residence, stallion stalls and stallion master's house were established on the Dormello Stud's 19 hectares of today in Dormelletto, Novara on the banks of Lake Maggiore in northern Italy. This has always been where mares with foals and Stallions of the day reside. By the 1930s the complex of stables attributable to Villa Tesio, the largest in Italy, included, within it, several farms in the municipal area that - over time - were established by Tesio: those of "Surga", the "Montaccio", the "Route", the "Moretta", the "Cucchetta", the "Torbera", the "Motta", each complete with a manager's house, stables and necessary stabling. One was for pregnant mares, one for barren mares, one for yearlings, one with a nearby huge dirt track within the treed forest in a flat over the top of the mount for horses in training and so on. These farms were all part of a stretch of land which took in most of the Dormelletto of today. The Tesio property stretched from the flats of the lake about 4 km to the west and up the mounts of about 1500 metres and spread to the South for about 1.5 km. The successor...