Through Highs and Lows, Dettori Endures

Frankie Dettori's career has somehow always been charted from one public landmark to another: fleeting moments that unmistakably condense and guarantee a lasting impact on Turf history. Of course, these tend to be sooner moments of triumph than crisis, none more so than his defining breakthrough at Ascot 20 years ago this week. But the lows, when they have come, have been no less melodramatic. Hauled from the flames of a plane crash. An excruciating breakdown in his 18-year relationship with Godolphin. A six-month drugs ban. In celebrating the anniversary of his “Magnificent Seven”, then, it can be hard to remember that there are ridges joining the peaks and valleys; that even Frankie Dettori spends most of his time in the mundane rituals of his trade, riding work, sitting in traffic jams, juggling family time and professional commitments.

“People tell me I've had a very up-and-down life,” he tells TDN. “I say to them: 'No, I've just had a very colourful life.' I've touched a lot of extremes. That's the way I am. My life's been like that as long as I can remember, in my childhood, in my apprenticeship, all the way through. You become used to it. In fact, I like these extremes, these emotions: a boring life doesn't suit me. So I dread the day when I do retire, because something–don't ask me what–is going to have to fill that gap.”

That day will duly be deferred for as long as he feels sensible. Forty-six this winter, Dettori is thinking in terms of riding until he is 50–exactly twice the age he was when riding through the card at Ascot on 28 September 1996, and finding himself an overnight celebrity.

“I didn't really understand what had happened until I opened the door to pick up the newspapers the next morning, wearing a T-shirt and underpants, and found four cameras and 10 journalists waiting there,” he says. “It was my Rhys Ifans moment, in [the film] Notting Hill. Then when I opened the papers I found I was all over the front pages. The bookmakers had lost £40 million, I was moving the stock market, there were punters making millions. It was only then that I understood what I'd achieved.”

The fact that he had accomplished the miracle more or less in a trance, by sheer instinct, confirms what has always been said of Dettori: namely, that he operates best when “in the zone”. That is also true of other top-class sportsmen, who can impose themselves on a situation by a kind of charismatic intensity. But the effect will obviously be rather more direct on a sensitive thoroughbred than on a bunch of other guys in a ball game.

“People say I ride on impulse, that when things are going well I ride well,” Dettori reflects. “And it's true. That whole day…well, I didn't really remember anything about the fourth and fifth winners, because I was still feeding off the buzz of winning the QEII on Mark Of Esteem (Ire) (Darshaan {GB}). How to win that race had been the only thing in my head that morning. After he had won, well, it's my mind that takes over, not me. You can't plan to be like that. The crowd gets behind you, the adrenaline's pumping, you just go up another notch. I wish I could bottle it, so that I could use it every Saturday. Certainly I wasn't going to let the last race spoil anything. I went out there with a je ne porte quoi attitude. I felt absolutely no pressure, and that's probably why I won.”

By the same token, times of trouble have threatened to turn that same momentum, that self-fulfilling emotional agenda, against Dettori–never more pathetically than when, reduced by that painful estrangement from Godolphin, he failed a drugs test in 2012. On returning from his suspension, the following June, he rode only 16 British winners through the rest of the season. He candidly admits that he was contemplating retirement. The one lifeline he had been thrown, by an unfamiliar new force in Sheikh Joaan al Thani, seemed to be cruelly severed when Dettori broke his ankle five days before he was due to ride Treve (Fr) (Motivator {GB}) in her first Arc. He sat at home and sobbed at the television as she skated up by five lengths under Thierry Jarnet.

“I had got the momentum going again and then suddenly I was back to square one,” Dettori says. “It was awful. The thing is, when you do this kind of job you're alone. People can give you advice. But once you're out there, it's you and the horse. And if the brain's wrong, you're going to find yourself doing the wrong things. Because it goes through your arms, you know. So yes, I must say my riding then wasn't the best. It took me a long time to get over what happened at Godolphin. After 18 years, even my car was hanging towards Godolphin every morning.

“And when Criquette [Head, her trainer] took me off Treve, the following summer, that was even harder to swallow than watching her win the first time. Really, I was devastated. The filly wasn't well, she was underperforming. Everyone could see that. What Criquette did basically was put the blame on me, and I felt I didn't deserve that.”

Treve duly bounced back to form in the Arc–but the darkest hour comes just before the dawn. Within a month William Buick, stable jockey to John Gosden, was hired by Godolphin. Dettori received the news in a text and immediately wondered whether he should sound out his old mentor about teaming up again; moments later, the phone rang, and it was Gosden himself. When Dettori reported to ride work the following spring, the first horse Gosden sat him on was Golden Horn (GB) (Cape Cross {Ire}). And while Dettori instead rode the flashy worker Jack Hobbs (GB) (Halling) when Golden Horn and Buick won the G2 Dante S., his mount ran well enough for Godolphin to buy a stake. When the pair proceeded to Epsom, Buick was claimed to ride in the royal blue and Dettori duly regained the mount on Golden Horn–and the rest is history.

“I believe in fate,” Dettori says. “But there was also self-belief. I said to myself that I would stick at it. I deserved another chance. Because I didn't deserve to go out like that. It did get to the stage when I thought I was not going to get that chance, but it did come. As I said, fate. So when Golden Horn ran in the Arc, and Treve was going for her third win, I said to myself: 'This is my turn, now.'”

Dettori assents when it is put to him that he responded to that piquant challenge with one of the very best rides of his career.

“Yes,” he says. “It was. But I absolutely believed it was fate as well. A great horse, a great atmosphere, my son's 16th birthday–and the horse was No 16, as well. The whole thing is mad. When I look back, it's just mad.”

That summer Dettori had ridden his 50th Royal Ascot winner, at the gratifying expense of a Godolphin rival. And this time round, back at the track he has made his own, he produced a masterclass on his latest Classic winner, Galileo Gold (GB) (Paco Boy {Ire}), in the G1 St James's Palace S. and escorted the sensational Lady Aurelia (Scat Daddy) to her runaway success in the G2 Queen Mary S. Here was a rider back in his pomp, his native ability nowadays honed by a still greater breadth of experience.

Regeneration, clearly, has been even more fulfilling than his initial rise to stardom.

“At the end of my time with Godolphin, I had lost my horsemanship,” Dettori admits. “It's like getting divorced, you're going through a bad period. Going back to John, getting back in the stable again, it was like starting over. John is not just a master with the bloodstock. He gets inside my head and trains me as well. He's not just a great trainer but a great friend as well.”

Things have now reached a point where Dettori can even take a step back and ask himself whether the disasters that overtook him were a necessary condition of this revival. Albeit, he never again wants to endure a conversation as painful as the one with his father, when he had to break the news of his drugs ban, he acknowledges that his time off had a cathartic quality.

“It was a good time to re-analyse everything, to re-group, to re-charge the batteries. To be honest with you, maybe it happened for a reason.”

The day the story broke, he watched a news channel in bewilderment.

“First headline: Dettori fails drugs test. Second: Obama elected for second time as President of the United States. Third: war starts in Syria.”

He shakes his head, more ashamed of the idiocies of celebrity culture than of his own embarrassment. Having said which, there are no regrets as he looks back on the sudden inflation of his profile, 20 years ago.

“If my name is remembered, that day at Ascot will be the first thing it's remembered for,” he says. “For once we managed to get racing on the front pages for the right reasons. Usually it's doping scandals, gambling scandals. And, for me, it meant that I had the chance to do all those things I could never otherwise have done: the chat shows, Top of the Pops, Question of Sport. And I guess I was the first person in racing to do all that. It did change my life, but it's all been positive. And don't forget that on the day itself, there were people from all walks of life–young chaps, businessmen, housekeepers, taxi drivers–who made thousands and thousands of pounds. And I'm proud of that.”

Essentially, however, he is no more disposed to rake over the past than fret about the future. Though disappointed when Lady Aurelia burned herself up at Newmarket last weekend, he had become so immersed in her preparation–as Wesley Ward's trans-Atlantic “assistant”–that some have wondered whether he might one day fill that looming gap as a trainer.

“No,” he insists. “It was just that Wesley was kinda stuck, and it's a great honour to be riding one of the best 2-year-olds in the world. And she's a sweetheart. Usually you ride a horse for three minutes, but she's been my baby for three weeks. Even Golden Horn I only rode a couple of times a week and I've been riding her every day. But at the same time it's been nerve-wracking and I couldn't wait to get to Saturday. So while I'm sure I'd like to keep riding out when I retire, I don't think training will be for me. It's all right when you've got just one horse, and she's a champion 2-year-old. But I think when you have 80, and they're all handicappers, that might be a different ball game.

“Anyway, I'm enjoying this stage of my career probably more than any other. I'll go on as long as I can. And I will try to enjoy every day. When you're young, you think you'll ride forever. But now, with everything I've been through, I know to enjoy every little moment.”