Dettori’s time to shine, says Piggott
LEGENDARY British jockey Lester Piggott has urged punters to overlook Frankie Dettori’s chequered Melbourne Cup record, insisting the flamboyant Italian is ready to strike on second favourite Almandin.
Aware of Dettori’s Flemington frustrations and failures, Piggott said: “He’s been second a couple of times on awful horses. One of them (Max Dynamite) was a jumper.
“This time he’s on a good horse. Don’t worry, he can do it.”
For all his phenomenal northern hemisphere success, Dettori polarises Australian punters.
He was second on Godolphin’s Central Park in 1999 and again runner-up two years ago on Max Dynamite in a ride condemned by stewards, drawing a month ban and $20,000 fine for late-race carnage.
Regarded as the greatest jockey of all time, Piggott says Dettori and Ryan Moore remain the finest two jockeys in the UK.
“Dettori is a very good jockey,” Piggott said after visiting Racing Victoria’s apprentices school. “His record shows that.”
Dettori believes fate – and Almandin – are poised to finally deliver Cup success.
The globetrotter is yet to add Flemington’s feature to a bulging collection of international Group 1 scalps but Dettori says he has never had a better chance of success.
“I’ve been there a few times with the potential favourite who might not have travelled well or pulled up lame,” Dettori told Sky Sports radio.
“I didn’t have the best of luck in the race … this time it’s my real opportunity to perhaps break my taboo.”