The last person who transcends the sport could make more headlines at the Breeders’ Cup
I
t has been a giddy, glorious and occasionally bumpy ride, but this time, it seems, Frankie Dettori’s mind is made up. The most storied jockey of the last 40 years will effectively head into retirement after the main card at the Breeders’ Cup at Del Mar on Saturday, when he will have three chances to add a farewell Grade One winner to nearly 300 on his record already. Racing may not see a career quite like it again.
Alongside Lester Piggott and perhaps John McCririck over the past half-century, “Frankie” registers with pretty much everyone, no surname required. People know who he is, even if they have no interest at all in what he does. In a world that has been fragmented by social media and the internet, Dettori may well be the last racing figure who will ever enjoy such instant name-recognition across a broad swathe of the British population.
Dettori’s lifetime in the sport, after all, dates back to an era when A Question Of Sport regularly pulled in more than 10 million viewers, and a three-year stint as a team captain was more than enough to establish him as the bubbly, irrepressible face of racing. His last year on the show was 2004, which was also the year when he won the Flat jockeys’ title for the third and final time. As far as much of the British public is concerned, however, he has probably been the champion in most years since.
