Superstar stallion tipped for top job

Varenne has won 50 victories from 60 starts

The brightest star in Italy's sporting firmament this week has four legs not two.

Varenne, the country's favourite trotting horse, has become so popular that one newspaper suggested he should take to the corridors of power and become foreign minister.

Berlusconi: Facing competition from a champion trotter?

At the moment that post is occupied by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, following Renato Ruggiero's resignation earlier this month.

But La Stampa suggested that he should make way for a real star - the six-year-old trotting champion which rode off at the weekend with the French classic title, the Prix d'Amerique, for the second year running.

Not since Caligula, who had his horse made a consul of the Roman empire, has so much honour been bestowed on one horse.

Star stud

Varenne already has all the trappings of fame.

"[He] has a call centre that gives information on his life and races, a press office and an eight-man team who works only for him. He was elected Italian athlete of the year 2001 and has even become a TV star," reported La Repubblica.

Support for the dark brown stallion is overwhelming. Seven thousand Italians travelled to Vincennes, east of Paris, on Saturday to support their sporting hero.

"Poor and rich hug one another round the fence in Vincennes," reported Corriere della Sera as it waxed lyrical about the horse's power to bring Italians together.