Frankie Dettori: The real magnificent seven, from Dubai Millennium to that day at Ascot
By Ben Linfoot
09:37 · WED June 21, 2023
With Frankie Dettori heading into his final Royal Ascot, we look back on his seven greatest moments in the saddle.
7. Dubai Millennium
How do you sum up Lanfranco Dettori’s 18-year stint in the Godolphin blue?
The man who was the public face and star player of Sheikh Mohammed’s operation since its inception in 1994, Dettori cut ties with his old boss in 2012 at the age of 41, at the time leaving fans wondering if he would ever dine at the top table again.
The rest is history, but if there is one horse from the Godolphin era to pick out it has to be Dubai Millennium, who startled the world of racing on March 25 2000 with an outstanding performance in the Dubai World Cup at Nad Al Sheba, defying a wide draw in 11 with impressive gate speed before making all for a procession-like six-length success under Dettori.
6. The Good, the Strad and the Ugly
It has been mainly magnificent, but not all a bed of roses for Dettori during his career.
There was the horrific plane crash, the prohibited substances, the six-month drug ban and the rides and winners subsequently drying up, then losing the ride on Treve.
If one horse sums up the highs and lows of Dettori it’s Stradivarius, a remarkably talented and durable stayer who won 16 times under Dettori, including six Group 1s.
He was a horse who gave Dettori some of his finest moments in the saddle, yet he was a horse that gave him some of his most forgettable rides, too; most notably the one that was the catalyst for the very public ‘sa-spat-ical’ with John Gosden last year, who somewhat threw his jockey under the bus with the “our hero over-complicated it” line.
5. Golden Horn’s Arc
Of course, Gosden and Dettori go way back and the second partnership between the pair has very much given the Italian jockey a prolonged Indian summer to the end of his career.
His association with some of the Gosden greats, another of which we’ll get to in a moment, has given Dettori the kind of days even he must’ve thought were behind him during the low moments post-Godolphin and Golden Horn gave him plenty on his own.
He was a tremendous three-year-old in 2015, winning the Derby, Eclipse and Irish Champion Stakes, but it’s his Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe success for which he’ll be remembered.
Kept wide from his could’ve been killer draw in 14 in the early stages, Dettori produced a Longchamp masterclass in the saddle to thwart two of Andre Fabre’s and his old pal, Treve.
READ: Andrew Asquith on the big head-to-heads
4. Authorized’s Derby
By the time Golden Horn won the Derby it was Dettori’s second Epsom success, but there was a time when it looked as though he might never win the greatest race of them all.
His first 14 rides in the Derby all met with defeat, but then along came a penalty-kick in the shape of 5/4 favourite Authorized and he wasn’t going t blaze it over the bar.
A slow start wouldn’t have been how he won the race in his dreams the night before, but Dettori dealt with that slight setback well and made steady progress to the two-furlong pole – where he unleased the son of Montjeu who responded in style.
He burst five lengths clear, tongue lobbing out, emphatically landing, finally, a first Derby for Frankie.
Authorized was different class in the 2007 Derby
3. Enable
We’ve mentioned Dettori’s partnerships with Gosden greats Stradivarius and Golden Horn, but his most famous association of them all was with star filly Enable.
The daughter of Nathaniel won 14 of her 16 starts under Dettori, including 11 Group 1s, starting with a sensational Oaks and ending with a third King George.
Brilliant in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, not once but twice, she couldn’t make history by becoming the first horse to win that race three times despite having two cracks at the accolade.
Such was her astonishing record, though, it hardly dented her reputation and she goes down as the best filly Dettori ever rode.
“I love her so much, we’ve won everything,” he said after her 2019 Yorkshire Oaks at York.
“She’s an amazing horse as she’s uncomplicated, has great presence and a massive engine. She just keeps on winning."
WATCH: Enable beats Crystal Ocean in a King George thriller
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2. Royal Ascot 2019
No other jockey can put fear into a bookmaker like Frankie Dettori. Not after what happened at number one in this list.
If he’s done it once, he can do it again, and he almost did at Royal Ascot in 2019 when he won the first four races on day three of the meeting to cause havoc in bookies offices up and down the land.
A’Ali won the Norfolk Stakes under Dettori at 5/1, then he landed the Hampton Court on Sangarius at 13/2.
The blood now pumping, he was brilliant aboard Star Catcher in the following Ribblesdale and plenty of Frankie four-timers were heading onto even-money chance Stradivarius in the Gold Cup.
When he won at evens the bookies feared the worst and Turgenev, 25/1 in the morning, was sent off at 7/2 for the Britannia Stakes (replay below).
He nearly won it, too, going three lengths clear a furlong out, but perhaps the blood was pumping a bit too much as he got caught by Biometric at the death, much to the cheers of the bookies.
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1.Magnificent 7
There were no cheers from the bookmakers on September 28, 1996.
That was the day Frankie did the impossible, winning all seven races on a Group 1 card, including the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes on Mark Of Esteem.
The acca paid approximately 25,000/1 and catapulted Dettori to becoming a household name.
Fittingly, on a day that cost the betting industry more than £30 million, his first winner on the day was 2/1 favourite Wall Street, while he rounded it off on another 2/1 favourite Fujiyama Crest – a horse who was 12/1 in the morning.
Sensational, flamboyant, box office. Everything that we’ve become accustomed to associate with Frankie Dettori.
2023 is proving a highly successful long goodbye, but my goodness, he will be missed.
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