The 9-year-old Cokstile scored his first success at Hippodrome Paris-Vincennes on Sunday in the Prix d’Amérique Races ZEturf Qualif # 5 – Prix de Bourgogne. Of Norwegian nationality, he has been coached since September by the Dane Erik Bondo and is driven by the Italian Gabriele Gelormini.
Raised about twenty kilometers from Oslo by Per Erik Hagen, very keen on French Trotters whom he regularly uses in his choice of stallions, Cokstile, himself the grandson of the top tricolor stallion Coktail Jet, was sold as a yearling € 17,000 and rose to rank among the best of his generation in his country. His claim to fame is then the Norsk Travderby won in particular at the expense of Chief Orlando and Looking Superb. In the process, he comes to Paris-Vincennes for the first time to compete in the Critérium Continental in which he will not be able to shine.
At 5 years old, he took part in his first Elitloppet but, diminished by lung problems, he could not perform. Two years later, and while he was sold to Italian owners and won in his adopted country the Palio des Communes and the Grand Prix des Nations, two Groups I, where he was respectively ahead of Billie de Montfort, among others. and Vivid Wise As, he returned to Solvalla where he won the first battery before losing in the final against Propulsion which he would take advantage of the disqualification some time later to win his biggest title.
Last September, the owners of Cokstile decided to place him in training with Erik Bondo, winner of the Prix d’Amérique Legend Race with Abano As in 2003. This Danish trainer is divided between Italy and France, where he works regularly with the transalpine driver Gabriele Gelormini to whom he entrusted Cokstile for his return to Paris-Vincennes last month before his success on Sunday, the first in France, he who has therefore also won in Norway, Italy and Sweden.
