FRANKIE’S GREATEST TRIOMPHE
Dettori ‘ready’ to create history with fifth Arc win
HIS flying dismount patented the expression of a jockey’s post-race euphoria.
But Frankie Dettori won’t discuss plans for celebration ahead of today’s Qatar Prix de l’arc de Triomphe.
The Italian takes the mount on hot-favourite Enable in Europe’s middle-distance championship decider knowing that victory for the John Gosden-trained filly will propel him into the sport’s record books as the most-garlanded rider in the Arc’s 97-year history.
But quizzed about the prospect of a fifth success 46-year-old Dettori shrugs: “The only thing in my mind is to try and give the filly every chance and to try to win.
“I just hope that everything goes well and she runs a decent race.
“If we get beat by a better horse, so be it.”
Enable, an even-money market leader in bookmakers’ lists, canters to post in the shadow of Chantilly’s famous chateau – once the backdrop to a scene in Bond movie A View to a Kill – with four Group 1 scores this season.
Having outstayed Rhododendron in the Oaks at Epsom, the Prince Khalid Abdullah’s daughter of Nathaniel reunited with Dettori, still carrying a double shoulder fracture after an accident pre-race at Yarmouth, for an easy follow-up in the Irish version at the Curragh.
But it was the three-year-old’s dismissal of open opposition – she beat year-older colt Ulysses, reopposing today, by four-and-a-half lengths – that established Enable as an outstanding talent, before a warm-up for today in the Yorkshire Oaks.
“She’s been amazing, but this is her biggest test,” warns Dettori, who first rode in the Arc in 1988 and racked up 25 successive mounts before a broken ankle forced him to give up the winning ride on Trêve four years ago.
“Everybody – Capri, Ulysses, Winter – has turned up. It’s the biggest prize of the season, the race everybody wants to win.
“She’s been very consistent but, as you know, she’s had a long season, too. She seems in good fettle in the morning, she looks well and we’re all happy.
“But everybody’s there so, if she wants to be the best in Europe, she’s got to show her stuff.”
Lammtarra gave him his first win in 1995, before Godolphin’s Sakhee (2001) and Marienbard (2002) beat large fields at Longchamp, which is giving up the Arc for the second year while the finishing touches are added to the Paris track’s new grandstand.
Gosden’s Derby winner Golden Horn defied a wide draw under a Dettori masterclass two years ago.
He reflected: “Of the four, that was the best ride – or, at least, that’s what everyone tells me.”
A fifth Arc, and Dettori moves ahead of the likes of Pat Eddery, Yves Saint-martin and Olivier Peslier. But, for now, his thoughts are on the job in hand.
He admitted: “If I become this, or that, or the other, it doesn’t matter. It’s the Arc, we need a bit of luck, but I’m looking forward to it. We can discuss the rest afterwards!”