🔗 Share this article

It has been an exhilarating, magnificent and at times bumpy ride, yet now, it seems Frankie Dettori's decision is final. The most celebrated rider of the past four decades is set to enter retirement after the main card at the Breeders’ Cup at Del Mar this Saturday, where he has three chances to secure one last Grade One winner to his almost 300 already in his record. The sport might not witness a career quite like it again.

An Iconic Figure

Together with racing great Lester Piggott and perhaps John McCririck in the last half-century, Frankie Dettori registers with pretty much everyone, no surname required. People know who he is, even if they have no interest at all in what he does. In a world that has been divided by social media and online networks, Dettori may well be the last racing figure who will ever enjoy such instant name-recognition among a wide segment of the British population.

Dettori’s lifetime in the sport, in fact, dates back to a time when the show A Question Of Sport regularly pulled in more than 10 million audience members, and his three-year role as a team captain was more than enough to establish him as the lively, unforgettable figure of the sport. His final year on the show was 2004, that was also the year when he won the Flat jockeys’ title for the third and final time. As far as much of the British public, though, he has likely been the champion in most years after that.

A Hard-Earned Fame

It is, in many ways, a hard-won celebrity, a double-edged reward for events both on and off the racecourse which have often pushed Dettori into the headlines, since the unforgettable afternoon at Ascot in 1996 when he defied odds of 25,000-1 to win all seven races on the card.

In June 2000, he was pulled from a fiery crash of a small plane by his fellow rider, Ray Cochrane, after a crash during takeoff in which the plane’s pilot lost his life. When at last concluded his pursuit for a Derby winner in 2007, that also became front-page news.

While everyone admires a champion, they often love an imperfect hero and a return all the more. A half-year suspension after a failed drug test for cocaine could have been the finish for most jockeys in their forties, more than enough time for owners and trainers to find a younger alternative. For Dettori, however, his 2012 suspension was a bridge to a renewed association with trainer John Gosden at Newmarket, and a fresh succession of champions and Classic winners, including Enable, Golden Horn and Stradivarius.

Public Highs and Lows

The celebrated successes and lows have been a crucial element of his narrative, up to and including the embarrassing confession in March that he was filing for bankruptcy after a prolonged dispute with tax authorities over unpaid taxes, a circumstance that he attempted, and failed, to keep confidential.

There have been numerous turns in his story, in fact, that it's easy to overlook that without Dettori’s immense, once-in-a-generation skill, there would be no narrative whatsoever.

Natural Ability

It was evident from the start as a teenage apprentice that there was an instinctive rapport with the horses when Dettori was on board.

Horses ran for him, and improved for him. Back in 1990, he became the first teen since Lester Piggott to reach 100 winners in one season, and also announced his arrival among the elite with a Group One double at Ascot, on the same card that he would dominate without a loss just six years later. The famous flying dismount, copied from the US legend Angel Cordero Jr, was incorporated into Dettori’s repertoire in 1994, and the buzz from winning major races has always stayed with him. Neither has the talent of sensing, with almost clairvoyance, where to sit, when to make a move and where openings will emerge.

The Future Ahead

But what next for the recognizable figure of British racing? It won't be simple to step away completely, regardless if Dettori fulfils his apparent desire to take “a few rides in South America, something that I’ve always wanted to experience”. It is not, after all, a goal that he has mentioned until now.

But the calamitous decision to follow tax guidance that led to his dispute with HMRC indicates that he will not end his career with sufficient funds saved up to relax and take it easy.

Fresh Ventures

He has been appointed to a new position as an international ambassador with the soccer agent Kia Joorabchian’s burgeoning Amo Racing enterprise. Dettori told Matt Chapman on At The Races on Friday this was the main reason for his exit now, as well as being able to finish at the Breeders’ Cup. “These opportunities are rare, very often. I like the set-up – this is a young team with huge goals,” said the rider.

Joorabchian personally, was gushing in his praise for his new recruit on Thursday at Del Mar. “He is an icon, a genuine legend of the sport,” Joorabchian said. “When you talk about elite athletes such as LeBron James, Currys, Lionel Messi and Pelé and people like that, Frankie represents that for horse racing. When you go into Royal Ascot, you see a statue there, you know that he has influenced countless lives worldwide.

“He’s not here|“He isn't here} to amuse audiences, he’s here to actually work and he will be collaborate with us closely. He will be involved in every area of our business [but] he won’t be a racing manager. He is an international ambassador.”

Television reality shows is another possibility, although earlier outings on Big Brother and I’m A Celebrity … often showed a more somber aspect to Dettori’s character, beneath the cheerful public image. On both shows, he was an early casualty of the public vote.

It may be that Dettori personally does not really know what he will do and how to spend his time once his race-riding days ends. And for another 24 hours at least, he stays an elite professional jockey, concentrating on three mounts at one of the globe's prestigious and dazzling events in the calendar.

The Final Ride

A five-year-old filly named Argine will be his final Grade One mount in the Breeders’ Cup Mile, the identical event where he achieved his first Breeders’ Cup success back in 1994. Her performance in Japan in Japan suggests that she has something to find to figure, yet few jockeys in history have ever excelled in big moments like Frankie Dettori.

One last time, cue Frankie?