Frankie Dettori seeking a third Derby win on Arrest on his final ride in the race

‘I can happily retire – not now, but one day – and be able to tell my children that I won the Derby, the Arc, the King George, every Classic, and I’ve been champion jockey. I’ve conquered everything in my sport. I want to do more, of course, but I’ve ticked off all the big ones.’

It was his victory on Authorized in the 2007 Derby which enabled Frankie Dettori, quoted in his autobiography Leap of Faith, to feel that he’d finally completed the one major achievement in his riding career which had been eluding him for so long. The distant retirement which he also spoke of is now very much looming – Saturday will be 52-year-old Dettori’s final ride in a race he'd dreamed of winning since his teenage years in Milan.

Dettori’s first Derby ride came at the age of 21 in 1992 on Pollen Count. Much has happened in Dettori’s career in the 31 years since, but in a nice piece of symmetry, the trainer who gave him his first ride in the race, John Gosden, will also be giving him the leg up on his final Derby mount, Arrest. Pollen Count, 14/1 after winning the Classic Trial at Sandown, raced prominently for a mile before dropping out quickly to beat only two home.

Three years later, riding another Sheikh Mohammed-owned colt trained by Gosden, Dettori believed for a split second that he was all set to win. But despite being brought with a perfectly timed challenge to lead inside the final furlong, Tamure was in front only briefly before Walter Swinburn came with a storming late run down the outside on Lammtarra to beat Tamure a length into second. Lammtarra might have denied Dettori a first Derby but later in the year the same colt gave him his first wins in two more of ‘the big ones’ he talked about, the King George and the Arc.

A year later, Dettori was appointed stable jockey to the fledgling Godolphin operation riding for Lammtarra’s trainer Saeed bin Suroor. But that didn’t change Dettori’s Derby fortunes for the better despite some high-profile rides. 1000 Guineas winner Cape Verdi failed to stay when sent off favourite to beat the colts in 1998, and lack of stamina was also behind the defeats of the outstanding Dubai Millennium a year later, the only race he failed to win in ten starts, and that horse’s son, Dubawi, who was third in 2005. Another non-stayer was 2000 Guineas runner-up Snow Ridge, sent off joint favourite in 2004.

But Godolphin had no Derby runner in 2007 which enabled Dettori to maintain his successful partnership with the Peter Chapple-Hyam-trained Authorized on whom he’d won the Racing Post Trophy and the Dante. Unlike some of his past mounts, there were no stamina concerns regarding the son of Montjeu, and Authorized strode away inside the last couple of furlongs for a five-length victory over Eagle Mountain who emerged best of the eight runners saddled by Aidan O’Brien.

Authorized was one of the best Derby winners this century, but to the public – including those not necessarily fans of the sport given Dettori’s status as a household name beyond the confines of racing – the result was all about the winning jockey. Breaking with tradition, Dettori took Authorized on a victory parade in front of the stands before returning to a tumultuous reception in the winner’s circle and the inevitable flying dismount.

‘I’ve won all the other classics,’ said Dettori afterwards, ‘but this is the one I’ve always wanted. My dad was in tears after finishing fifth on the favourite Wollow in 1976, and my mum says it was the only time she ever saw him cry.’

Winning the Derby for a second time must have seemed very unlikely to Dettori when he went three years, 2012-2014, without even getting a ride in the race at all. He’d competed in every Derby since 1992 up until then with the exception of 2000 when, just over a week before Derby Day, he was lucky to escape with his life from a light aircraft crash at Newmarket.

But after a difficult period in his career following his split with Godolphin, a renewed association with John Gosden in 2015 happened to coincide with the three-year-old season of the top-class colt Golden Horn. Dettori was on board Golden Horn when he won the Feilden Stakes at Newmarket on his return at three but chose to partner stablemate Jack Hobbs instead when the pair contested the Dante. It was therefore William Buick who rode Golden Horn to victory at York, where Jack Hobbs finished second, but, after Golden Horn’s owner Anthony Oppenheimer supplemented him for Epsom and Buick’s bosses Godolphin purchased a major share in Jack Hobbs, the jockeys swapped mounts for their Derby rides.

Golden Horn proved to be a Derby winner every bit as good as Authorized, if not better, as he proved with subsequent wins under Dettori in the Eclipse, Irish Champion Stakes and Arc. Sent off the 13/8 favourite at Epsom, Dettori did well to settle Golden Horn who was keen in the early stages and, under a confident ride, unleashed him with over a furlong to run, his turn of foot taking him clear of Jack Hobbs to win by three and a half lengths.

If Dettori’s first Derby had primarily been about the satisfaction of having fitted in the last piece of the jigsaw to make his career complete, Golden Horn’s Derby was all about redemption and proving a point as he makes clear in his autobiography:

‘In all my years of riding, in all the races I’ve won, it’s the best and most exciting moment. More than the seven [winners at Ascot], more than my first Derby, more than anything. They told me I was finished. They told me I’d never be the same jockey again. They were wrong.’

Gosden might well have provided Dettori with his first Derby winner as early as 1997 as he was in line to partner Dante winner Benny The Dip until Godolphin elected to run the maiden winner Bold Demand. Committed to that colt instead, Dettori finished a well-beaten ninth with the winning ride on Benny The Dip going to Willie Ryan.

Just two years after Golden Horn, Dettori was on another Gosden-trained Derby favourite in the same black, white and red silks. Cracksman was to prove a top-class colt too later in his career but found the Derby coming a bit soon for him on just his third start, nevertheless being beaten only a length into third behind outsider Wings of Eagles.

Cracksman was by Frankel, a sire who has already given Dettori a classic winner in his final year, Chaldean in the 2000 Guineas, and is also the sire of his Oaks mount Soul Sister as well as Arrest on Saturday. Like Chaldean, Arrest carries the colours of Juddmonte which were also those of Enable, a mare who played such an important part in this final chapter of Dettori’s career, including when winning the Oaks in 2017.

A third and final victory on his 28th ride in the race would be a fairytale ending to Dettori’s thirty-plus years of competing in the Derby dating back to a time when nine-times Derby winner Lester Piggott, who rode in the race a record 36 times, was still riding alongside him. Coincidentally, another of the all-time greats, Sir Gordon Richards, champion jockey 26 times, also had 28 rides in the Derby. But if Dettori thought that he had a long wait before riding his first Derby winner, that was nothing compared to Richards’ hoodoo which he ended by winning on what turned out to be that final Derby ride on Pinza in 1953.

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