An absence of Frankie fever
NEWS of Frankie Dettori’s absence from this year’s Royal Ascot reached its most important recipient at the customs desk of Heathrow airport.
Ten missed calls greeted John Velazquez’s arrival from New york yesterday morning and a few hours later the American jockey was being transported into the winners’ enclosure by the turbo-hoofed Lady Aurelia.
It was one of four horses Dettori was scheduled to ride yesterday. Instead, Frankie was in Cambridge having scans on his left shoulder, which he injured in the paddock at yarmouth last week.
His business manager Peter Burrell told Sportsmail: ‘Frankie has fractured the top of his shoulder and will be out for two or three weeks.’
Dettori can never entirely be missing from here, of course. His statue stands in recognition of his 25,095-1 seven-timer in 1996. In all, since 1990, he has notched 56 Royal Ascot winners and secured the affections of the wider public.
But his real ebullient presence was missing and that was a dispiriting way to start day one in broiling Berkshire. Back at the airport, Velazquez (below) got through customs — no calls allowed there — and then found out his good fortune. He had inherited Lady Aurelia, the seven-length winner of the Queen Mary under Dettori last year, for the King’s Stand Stakes. It was a ride that turned out to be as comfortable as a Georgian armchair.
Last year Lady Aurelia was a blaster. Some of that rawness has been tamed at the hands of former jockey and work rider Julio Garcia.
It showed in this three-length victory, travelling powerfully throughout the fivefurlongs and then unleashing a leavethem-for-dead burst.
The course record was one-hundredth of a second beyond reach.
‘ That was awesome,’ said Wesley Ward, the 49-year- old American trainer, whose eighth Royal Ascot winner this was. ‘Lady Aurelia is special.’ But Ward’s thoughts soon turned to his pal Dettori. ‘He is the greatest,’ rhapsodised Ward. ‘I invited him over to Saratoga a few years ago and he had a great time. We had a couple of winners and we spent a lot of quality time together. We are firm friends. ‘My message to Frankie is: “you’re with us”. I can never thank him enough.’ That maybe a reflection of how Dettori, 46, trained Lady Aurelia while the filly was in England last summer, sending reports back from Newmarket to Ward in California. It must all have added to Dettori’s desire to kick his cat yesterday afternoon, although none of the three other mounts with L Dettori next to their names won. Ulysses in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes and Big Orange in the Gold Cup were stronger Dettori targets.
Racing’s most famous current competitor may be back — pending further specialist advice today — as a stand-in broadcaster on Friday. As for Velazquez, a 45-year-old with more than 5,000 wins on his c.v., he is now looking again at his domestic arrangements.
Velazquez had planned to return to America before Royal Ascot concluded on Saturday to look after his son Michael Patrick while his wife Leona and daughter Lerina visited Paris. But that was before the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge handed him the prize that came with his third triumph at this ancient party.
Dettori said from afar: ‘It is the most important week of the year for me but I have to get the injury properly looked after. I’ll be counting down the days until next year.’