Dettori’s birthday wish a third Arc win by Enable

In the year of his 50th birthday, renowned jockey Frankie Dettori wants only one present, a trip to Paris in October, to try making racing history on superstar mare Enable.

Dettori turns 50 in December but he remains as competitive as before and was in the saddle in 2019 when Enable, winner of 10 grade ones, won the Eclipse Stakes, King George VI and

Queen Elizabeth Stakes. However, the one race he wanted to win, a record third success in the Arc De Triomphe, eluded him and trainer John Gosden with victory going to the French runner Waldgeist.

Interviewed on Racing TV, Dettori said: “The aim is to get her to the first Sunday in October in the best shape we can, to get her to do something that no horse has done in Arc history.

“The obvious races are Royal Ascot or the Eclipse, those kind of races. She looks magnificent.

“Sometimes you are afraid when a horse is getting older [Enable is six] that they might lose the racing brain, but she seems very alert.

“She struts around the place like she owns it.”

But how fit is Dettori for the campaign ahead when British racing gets the green light from the government?

“I’m very close to my top fitness. After a few days and a few rides under my belt it will be business as usual,” said Dettori.

Enable, winner of 13 of her 15 races, had a low-key introduction to racing, winning by nearly four lengths on the allweather track at Newcastle in November 2016.

In April 2017, she reappeared at Newbury where she finished third behind stablemate Shutter Speed. It was her next two wins

— in the Cheshire Oaks and Investec Oaks, the latter run in a thunderstorm — that suggested she might be extraordinary.