REBORN FRANKIE HAS HIS EYES ON THE PRIZE
Frankie can seal comeback after cocaine ban with a win on favourite Golden Horn
The scripT has been written, the actors cast. The stage is ready for Frankie Dettori to deliver the most memorable performance of his life in this afternoon’s £ 1.34million investec Derby at epsom.
At 4.30pm, he will enter the starting stalls on 6-4 favourite Golden horn, a second victory in Britain’s most important Flat race potentially only an undulating mile and a half and less than 160 seconds away.
it is 30 years ago next month si nce Dettori arrived in Britain, and he reckons he will ride until he is 50 at least. potentially six more Derbies.
Dettori said: ‘i have had 19 rides (in the Derby) but a lot were just making up the numbers. Golden horn is favourite and the Dante was the best trial. This one is worth talking about. it only means something when you know you can win and this one can win.
‘ i am trying to enjoy it because i know i am running out of years. it will be difficult to retire, especially now my kids are beginning to understand what i do. i am really doing it more for them than myself — just to see the joy on their faces.
‘i have had a very colourful life. i have loved the highs and the lows. i would live it all again but i am not finished yet... i am trying to win the Derby!’
And there is no sentiment in Golden horn’s position in the betting. The John Gosdentrained colt earned it with that scintillating victory in the Dante stakes, beating Jack hobbs and elm park, at York last month.
it persuaded owner Anthony Oppenheimer, whose family founded the De Beers diamond company, to pay the £75,000 late entry fee to add Golden horn to the race despite personal reservations that the colt he bred l acked t he stamina for the most exacting
test a thoroughbred can face in a Flat race. Such was the impression Golden Horn created at York, plenty believe that the biggest danger is his own staying limitations, rather than the opposition, in a line-up regarded as open but certainly not vintage.
Gosden, who has warned he could pull out his second favourite and Dante Stakes runner-up Jack Hobbs if the going on the Downs dries up too much, seems persuaded Golden Horn can last and give him a second Derby to add to Benny The Dip’s victory in 1997. He was confident Golden Horn would come out on top at York and the fact that the colt’s sire, Cape Cross, was the father of 2009 Derby winner Sea The Stars is another positive.
So is the fact that the three representatives of dominant Irish trainer Aidan O’Brien, who l anded an unprecedented third successive win with Australia last year, do not seem up to his normal high standards.
Giovanni Canaletto, Hans Holbein and Kilimanjaro look strong stayers. At least one could hit the frame. Winning is harder to envisage. Drying conditions are also a worry to Success Days, but not for tempting outsider Storm The Stars.
Such thoughts about his rivals’ chances are sure to be buzzing around Dettori’s head and what makes this afternoon’s chance so special to the 44-year-old Italian is that such an opportunity seemed to have galloped over the horizon, never to return.
He might have won the 2007 Derby on Authorized, but Golden Horn will be his first ride in it since being unplaced on Ocean War in 2011. He has not won a Classic since Blue Bunting’s 1,000 Guineas in 2011 and he knows just how close he came to kissing days like this goodbye.
Retirement, Dettori concedes, back in the summer of 2013 was only a short-head away.
In the aftermath of his six-month ban for testing positive for cocaine while riding in France, his fall-out with Sheik Mohammed Al Maktoum and the split from his Godolphin operation after 18 years, contacts had been lost, doors closed, seemingly bolted.
That year Dettori rode 16 winners in Britain, a pitiful return for a rider who had landed the 1994 title with 233.
By Royal Ascot he had almost had enough. Written-off, over-the-hill, cold-shouldered. Perm any combination to understand how Dettori, the three-time champion jockey, felt until offered a lifeline by Qatari Sheik Joaan Al Thani.
Dettori said: ‘If it wasn’t for Sheik Joaan giving me the job I would probably have stopped that year. There was nothing there for me. There was no job available and I couldn’t ride any of the Maktoum horses because I had p****d them off.
‘I got to Royal Ascot and was just picking up a few rides here and there. I rode a couple of horses for the Sheik at Royal Ascot and then he offered me a job.
‘I told my dad that he only had 10 horses in England, but he said: “There is nothing out there, you might as well take it!”
‘Nobody knew Sheik Joaan two years ago. Now he is huge. He has lots of ambition and horses and the future looks good.’
If the clouds cleared with the Sheik Joaan appointment, the sun started shining for Dettori on November 8 last year.
With delicious irony, the recruitment of William Buick to Godolphin by Sheik Mohammed opened up the chance, after a near two-decade gap, of a return as main j ockey to Newmarket- based Gosden, arguably the most influential person in Dettori’s career.
Back in 1993, Dettori had been at another crossroads. Rumours of a move to Hong Kong had caused an acrimonious split with Luca Cumani, his mentor since arriving from Italy as a 14-year- old, and he had received a police caution for possession of cocaine after a boozy night out in London.
Gosden provided the rock to anchor a worried teenager. He was a foundation for Dettori’s first two championships and his long association with Sheik Mohammed. He even supplied his first Derby ride — unplaced Pollen Count in 1992.
Dettori said: ‘I was coming home from a horse show with the kids. A couple of the lads texted about William Buick. I was giggling with (wife) Catherine, saying: “Shall I text John and see if I can get my old job back?” Within five minutes he called me. We get on really well. We had four great
years together. He moulded me into what I am now. His way of training suits my style of riding. I don’t know why.
‘At the time, he was my father figure — now I am older, he is more of a mate. It is very soothing going back to John. I missed it. I forgot how close we were. I now have a great routine and know exactly where I stand. He is giving me peace of mind and it reflects in my riding.
‘People say I am a mood rider. I can’t see that but everyone tells me it’s true.’
Dettori’s mood has certainly been upbeat this season. The dovetailing of the Gosden and Sheik Joaan jobs — the Sheik has let Dettori off outsider Moheet to ride the favourite — has led to a string of the big race rides he was starved of during the last years of his association with Godolphin when the promotion of Mickael Barzalona left Dettori a marginalised, demoralised figure. It was a reason, if not excuse, for his cocaine lapse 24 hours after seeing Barzalona win the St Leger on Encke.
The professional divorce from Sheik Mohammed quickly followed and while initial attempts to clear the air with the Sheik were unsuccessful, Dettori (left) revealed the two have now spoken, albeit briefly. ‘ I saw Sheik Mohammed at Newmarket and spoke to him,’ Dettori said. ‘I said hello and it is all fine. ‘It was general chit chat but it was important. It is usually the people in the middle who mess things up. It is not actually the boss. I cleared the water with him.’