Leap of Faith

Frankie Dettori (Harpercollins, £20)

JOCKEY interviews can be a lottery for the unwary reporter: a taciturn, breathless mumbling through a gumshield. With Frankie Dettori, you’re guaranteed an ebullient, articulate response that can’t help but make you smile. He’s endearingly honest about meeting The Queen, falling out with Sheikh Mohammed, taking cocaine, fearing he’ll never win the Derby and the numbing terror of being hauled out of a burning plane by fellow jockey Ray Cochrane.

His co-writer, Boris Starling, has done a great job in translating the quickfire, heavily Italian accented delivery into a fastpaced, funny autobiography of a sportsman whose instinctive genius in the saddle is not always matched by the flawed decisions made out of it.