CRYING OUT FOR GLORY
As superstar Enable chases a record treble in tomorrow’s Arc, an emotional Frankie Dettori is…
The only certainty about tomorrow’s Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp is that it will end up in tears for jockey Frankie Dettori.
The Italian is determined they will be tears of joy as he executes a plan to make enable the first three-time winner of europe’s most important Flat race — rather than weeping at a deflating exit on what seems likely to be the wonder mare’s 15th and final race.
enable, bred and owned by Khaled Abdulla and trained by John Gosden who is chasing a fourth Arc in five years, is one of only eight dual Arc winners.
If she can pull it off, it will be an amazing seventh Arc success for Dettori and a 17th Group One win of the season, bettering his previous best haul in 2001.
But racing’s biggest showman, who will be 49 in December, says tomorrow’s race for the £2.5million first prize is not about him.
It is, Dettori says, about the mare he loves and lavishes with Polo mints and his determination to make her a ‘racing immortal’.
Dettori said: ‘I have ridden some great horses but enable’s c.v. is incomparable to anything else I have ridden. I have won six Arcs so, to me, getting another one will not make a difference. It’s more for her and the sport. If she create history she will be immortal.
‘It’s about a fitting finale for enable. She has been a star and nobody will forget her and her races like her thrilling victory over Crystal Ocean in the King George VI & Queen elizabeth Stakes at Ascot in July. I cried when she won the Yorkshire Oaks at York in August and I will probably cry again. She has been part of my life for three years. She has taken me to places that no other horse has taken me.
‘ Of course, I love her. That means there will be sadness too. I will be riding her in the most important race of her career and I will also be letting her go. For me it will be sad day. A great day, but a sad day.’
Dettori concedes he has been thinking about enable’s Arc bid every day since she won the eclipse Stakes at Sandown in July on her comeback.
he has been taking no risks ahead of his 31st Arc and has not had a ride since last Saturday. Since being unplaced on Roushayd in Tony Bin’s 1988 Arc, the only time he has missed the race was when he was supposed to ride 2013 winner Treve but broke his ankle.
Despite the experience he admits the pressure has also been building. ‘ The nerves kick in on Friday,’ he said. ‘Then I’m not a nice person to be around. I am obnoxious and nothing is right. My family and disappear.
‘No horse has done what enable has done. We are trying to scale a mountain that has never been scaled before.
‘The Arc is no gimme. There are the best horses in europe taking you on. everything has to go right and enable has to perform at her best and I have to make sure that I don’t make a balls-up of it. Apart from that it is easy!’
The Arc is certainly no gimme but there are reasons beyond enable’s record of 14 wins, 10 of them at Group One level and £9,382,243 in prizemoney that make her the overwhelming favourite. Most importantly, her run-in to the race has been in complete contrast to 12 months ago when, below her best after being beset by injury and illness, enable clung on for victory from fast-finishing Sea of Class.
The latter’s sad death after being struck down by cancer means one of the biggest obstacles to enable is removed. So is the threat of King George runnerup Crystal Ocean, hastened to retirement by injury.
The fact that only 11 rivals take her on – there were 18 last year and 17 when she beat Cloth of Stars in 2017 — also mean the randomness of disruptive race events is reduced.
enable has met and beaten old rivals Magical and Waldgeist, while the threat of three horses from Japan lacks the quality of previous challenges. That leaves three rivals enable has never faced who look her biggest dangers — Ghaiyyath and the three-year-old colts Japan and Sottsass.
French Derby winner Sottsass, who would be the first hometrained winner since Treve in 2014, looks the most likely party pooper but Dettori feels his No 1 danger is Japan, who has got better with every run and landed York’s International Stakes on his last run. But it has hardly been a vintage year for the Classic crop and we know that horses like enable come in limited editions.
When Treve tried to land her third Arc in 2015, it was Dettori who blocked her path on Golden horn.
This time the stage is set for him and enable to make history. Frankie had better have packed the Kleenex.