It was still dark on Wednesday morning as Frankie Dettori walked back to the European barn after watching Golden Horn, the Derby and Arc winner, cantering on the training track, but his excitement shone through the drizzle and gloom. He counted up his rides at the Breeders’ Cup meeting, six in all and most of those strongly fancied. “Fantastic!”, he said, with a punch of the air, a 44-year-old jockey who has seen and done it all, looking forward to the weekend like a four-year-old before Christmas.
Dettori should really be used to it by now, after a year that has moved smoothly from one triumph to the next and reaffirmed his status as the most popular and celebrated jockey in the business. It is less than three years since he was banned for six months for a positive test for cocaine, shortly after losing the long-term job with Sheikh Mohammed’s Godolphin operation that had done so much to make him famous in the first place. Now, after eight Group One wins already this year including the Derby and the Arc on Golden Horn, the self-inflicted wound that threatened Dettori’s career has healed with no hint of a scar.
And he is not finished yet. Golden Horn is the undoubted highlight of Dettori’s book of rides this weekend and will be the hot favourite for Saturday’s Turf but he has big chances on Miss France and Judy The Beauty, too, for France’s champion trainer, André Fabre, and the local stable of Wesley Ward. A few hours after riding Golden Horn Dettori will be on a plane to Australia, where he is booked to ride Max Dynamite, one of the favourites for Tuesday’s Melbourne Cup.
Dettori is back in demand and loving every moment of it. “After the Melbourne Cup I’ll probably have to sit down and reflect on what a great year it’s been but right now I’m more focused on the weekend,” he said here.
“It’s a big day on Saturday. It’s not just Golden Horn. I’ve got some other good rides too. The races are all very hard to win but we’ll give it a good go. I love racing here [in the US] and, after a season like this, it’s all good.”
John Gosden, the trainer of Golden Horn, has played a key role in Dettori’s rejuvenation, just as the jockey’s return to form has helped Gosden to secure record-breaking prize-money returns both in Britain and abroad.
“I think from his point of view, to him now at his age, he’s not a kid any more,” Gosden said this week, “and these great victories, Arcs and Derbys, they mean everything to him now, where before there was going to be another one next year. We’ve known each other for many years and know each other very well, so that always helps and the unspoken word is usually more telling than the spoken word.”
Gosden does not see Dettori’s return to the pinnacle of international racing as a second coming. Instead he feels he helped to rediscover a talent that had started to slide out of view.
“I don’t think we resurrected anything,” Gosden said. “All the ability, all the finesse, all the knowledge, it was all there. It was just that you need good horses to ride. I’ve always said, you don’t put a driver in a Formula Two car and tell him to compete in a Formula One race. You’ll get lapped.
“I never questioned him at all. It was a lack of opportunities that was his problem. Frankie is as good as ever, he really is and he’s still as hungry as ever, but I think the thing is, he’s probably enjoying it more than he ever did, which I think is important.”
There is little doubt about that. Among British-based jockeys Ryan Moore is the only rider whose international record in recent years stands any comparison with Dettori’s but, while Moore could probably walk around the enclosures here with his riding silks on and not attract attention, everyone knows Frankie. Fans seem to appear from thin air every time he leaves the jockeys’ room, hoping for a word or an autograph.
Dettori’s return to centre stage has been a blessing for the sport as a whole. He has 11 winners at the Breeders’ Cup already, which places him sixth all-time for both wins and prize-money earnings and, with his form and confidence at an all-time high, it is difficult to believe he will not have a dozen or more by Sunday, setting the seal on an extraordinary year.
