London: Star jockey Frankie Dettori, who has dominated horseracing around the world for three decades, has announced will he hang up his saddle next year.
The British-based jockey, who shot to fame after winning all seven races during one afternoon at Ascot in 1996 – costing bookmakers millions of pounds in payouts – said on Saturday that the 2023 season in Britain would be his last.
Australia hasn’t seen too much of Frankie Dettori’s famous star-jump dismount.Credit:Getty
He made the shock announcement after consultation with his family, saying he wanted to avoid ending up like Portugal captain Cristiano Ronaldo, who started on the bench in his country’s final games at the soccer World Cup in Qatar.
“Not to make comparisons, but look at Ronaldo, he was playing one minute and on the bench the next. I don’t want to end up like that,” Dettori told ITV Racing.
“I’ve got to face reality – I’m not as good at 52 as I was at 35. Every year you are not as supple or as strong as you are in your 30s. I want to leave on a good impression, on a good note and at my best power. I’m still good enough to compete with the best.”
Dettori has won 282 group 1 races around the world and ridden more than 3300 winners in Britain alone. He has won the Ascot Gold Cup eight times among 21 British Classic triumphs.
He said he would ride for the next season and retire after one last race at the Breeders’ Cup in the United States next November – meaning his 30-year quest to win an elusive Melbourne Cup is almost certainly over.
Dettori has endured a love-hate relationship with Australian punters, having narrowly missed out on the country’s most famous race on runner-up on Max Dynamite in 2015. He finished second on Central Park in 1999. He was also second past the post on his last ride in the race in 2019 on Master Of Reality, before he was demoted to fourth on appeal for interference.
Dettori was in contact with Melbourne Cup-winning owners Lloyd and Nick Williams ahead of this year’s spring carnival, searching for another Melbourne Cup ride.
But Team Williams didn’t have a runner in this year’s Cup, instead offering Dettori a ride in Sydney on Cup Day in the Big Dance.
Lloyd Williams has previously described Dettori as the “Roger Federer” of racing.
“My comparison is to Roger Federer, but Roger has not been doing it as long,” Williams said ahead of the 2019 Cup.
“He desperately wants the Melbourne Cup. It’s the only big one worldwide he doesn’t have on his CV. This year after the [Ascot] Gold Cup which he won on the best stayer in the world in Stradivarius, he said Master Of Reality was my Melbourne Cup ride. So here he is on the Monday after the Breeders Cup to do it.”
Joseph O’Brien, trainer of Master Of Reality, said he was shattered for Dettori after Master Of Reality fell short in the 2019 Cup, won by Vow And Declare.
“I’m more gutted for Frankie than I am for myself. I’ll be back,” said O’Brien. “I don’t know if Frankie is ever going to win this race.”
Dettori detailed what his last year of racing would look like.
“I’m riding Boxing Day in Santa Anita and planning to spend about 10 weeks in California and then I’ll make my way back with Dubai and Saudi Arabia in between, to start the season in Newmarket.
“I’ll be riding right through and it’ll be my last Guineas, my last Derby, my last Royal Ascot and so on. Then I’ll have the final farewell at the Breeders’ Cup.”
Leading trainer Luca Cumani, an early mentor for Dettori in Britain, said he was “definitely one of the greatest jockeys there has been”.
“The most important thing is he loves the business, he loves being a jockey, and he loves the horses. That’s what made him great. He has a flair with horses. He has an amazing ability to transmit his will to win through the reins and into the brain of the horse. He did that time and time again,” he told the Racing Post.
Godolphin trainer Saeed Bin Suroor said Dettori was “the greatest there has ever been”.
“I think he has showed this year that he’s still the best,” he said. “Frankie has been so good for the sport in Britain, Europe and all around the world. Horseracing is going to miss him.”
with Damien Ractliffe
