A native of Peru and a longtime trainer in Southern California, Julio Canani passed away at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena following a lengthy illness Friday morning at age 83, according to his daughter, Lisa. Retired for the past several years, Canani trained the longshot winner of the 1989 Santa Anita Handicap, Martial Law ($130.60), who was ridden by Martin Pedroza and owned in part by Jeff Siegel and Barry Irwin's Clover Racing Stable.
Self-made, Canani came to America as a teenager, initially working for a landscaping company before making his way to the racetrack, where his betting instincts and innate guile enabled him to establish a social and economic base from which he would eventually become a multiple stakes winning conditioner who forever spoke fractured English while readily dispensing a wide variety of nicknames—some complimentary, some, not so much.
Although the 1989 Big 'Cap surely helped to put him on the map, Canani gained national recognition by winning three Breeders' Cup races. The Mile, in 1999 and 2001 with Silic and Val Royal, and with Sweet Catomine, who won the 2004 Juvenile Fillies and was subsequently named Eclipse Champion 2-year-old Filly.
Although the truth quite often escaped him, Canani had an instinctive feel for what reporters were looking for and he often attracted notice by wearing a variety of hats, including natural fur chapeaus that were better suited for a Siberian Winter but nonetheless helped facilitate dozens of interviews, print and broadcast, over a career that spanned roughly 50 years.
Canani, who cut his training teeth via the claimbox, won his first stakes race in the 1975 Oceanside at Del Mar with Willmar, who he had haltered for $20,000. His lengthy list of stakes winners included Bruho, Putting, Silver Circus, Davie's Lamb, Tranquility Lake, Tuzla, Silent Sighs, Ladies Din, Special Ring, Amorama and others.
Canani, who saddled his last horse, Fantastic Mizz, to a second place finish on Oct. 23, 2015 at Santa Anita, finished with 1,137 wins and purse earnings of more than $49 million.
Divorced from his first wife, Jane, Canani is survived by their two children, Lisa and Nick, as well as his current wife, Svetlana and their two children, Isabella and Alexander. Julio Canani is also survived by two grandchildren and one great grandchild.
There are no funeral services planned at this time, but the Canani family has requested donations be made to the Edwin J. Gregson Foundation.
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