'He was a hotshot, something different to what we had in Norway' - who is Amo's new trainer Raphael Freire?

It has been nearly a month since Raphael Freire was granted a licence to train in Britain and he made nearly as bold a start as could be imagined by sending out a €1 million two-year-old at Royal Ascot as his first runner.

Angelo Buonarroti performed with credit to finish ninth in the Coventry Stakes, although he has since left Freire at Kia Joorabchian’s Amo training centre in Lambourn to join Ralph Beckett.

Nevertheless, Freire, 28, has been entrusted with 30 horses owned by Joorabchian, with Maxi King in the Princess of Wales's Stakes and Enchanting Empress representing him in the Duchess of Cambridge at Newmarket this week.

From Rio de Janeiro, Freire’s father and grandfather trained horses and he initially tried to make it as a jockey in Brazil and Norway where he moved in 2015. He subsequently enrolled in a course to gain a trainer’s licence in 2018 and graduated in April 2019.

Ambitious and hard-working, Freire caught the attention of Hans Christian Valstad, who would go on to own Hotline Bling. 

“I put horses with him as my father-in-law also had horses and wanted to try him out,” Valstad said. “He was new and he was young and we could see that he wanted to train horses a lot and he wanted their performance to get better and to better himself. He was a hotshot, something different to what we had in Norway.”

Formerly owned by Amo Racing and sold to Freire by Joorabchian’s key lieutenant Robson Aguiar, who had ridden for Freire’s father in Brazil, Hotline Bling excelled in Norway where his victories included the Norsk 2,000 Guineas in 2022.

Valstad said Freire’s affinity with Hotline Bling was like nothing he had ever seen. “He had a really strong bond with him and cared for him like he was his own child; he was so in love with that horse,” he said. “It was almost like a romance.”

Freire acted as an assistant to trainer Dominic Ffrench Davis until getting his own licence, which was held up by approval of a UK visa, and had particular oversight of Amo Racing’s two-year-olds.

“He’s one of the best horsemen I've had anything to do with,” Valstad said. “You could see the horses meant more to him than anything in his life.”

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