Dettori: Zarooni caused my fall
FRANKIe Dettori has blamed disgraced trainer Mahmood Al Zarooni for the end of his 18-year association with Godolphin that led to him taking cocaine and a six-month ban from racing.
The 42-year-old former champion, due to return at Leicester on Monday night, said he turned to drugs as ‘a cry for help’.
Dettori added that he traced his erosion as No 1 jockey for Sheik Mohammed’s team back to the 2010 appointment of the trainer who last month brought disgrace on Godolphin by admitting giving banned anabolic steroids to 15 of his horses.
Zarooni, who was banned for eight years, is appealing against the length of his suspension, but Dettori said: ‘All the hard work — not just me, the whole stable — has been ruined by one person. He ruined my career to start and now he has given Godolphin a very bad reputation.’
However, Dettori said he had no evidence of drug-enhanced performances while riding Al Zarooni-trained horses.
Such was his turmoil as Dettori saw increasing numbers of his rides handed to Mickael Barzalona and Silvestre De Sousa, he claimed: ‘I wasn’t sleeping at night. I was arguing with my wife. My head was wrecked, absolutely wrecked. I couldn’t take it anymore.’
Dettori, who won 110 Group One races for Godolphin, said: ‘Up till about two years ago I was having the best time of my life. I had the best job in the world, the best relationship with Sheik Mohammed, with all the Godolphin stuff. I was loving it.
‘Then for some reason things have changed. We had a new trainer, new way of doing things. I didn’t know whether I was in or out. Sometimes I was riding them, sometimes I wasn’t, and things got worse and worse. There was never an explanation. I had to accept it for unknown reasons.’
It was 24 hours after seeing Barzalona win the St Leger on Godolphin’s encke that Dettori produced his positive test at Longchamp on September 16.
But he says he now regrets the lack of communication over his acceptance of the Arc ride on Camelot for rival trainer Aidan O’Brien. Being owned by the Coolmore Stud, Sheik Mohammed’s big rivals, prompted a bitter final split with Godolphin.
In an interview with Clare Balding on Channel 4 News, Dettori added: ‘In hindsight I should’ve perhaps confronted Godolphin and asked them the reasons. But things just spiral out of control.
‘It’s amazing when you analyse everything — it just all happens and you get yourself in a rut.’
Dettori said the intense testing programme prior to Monday’s comeback has left him feeling like disgraced drugs cheat cyclist Lance Armstrong.
He said: ‘I’ve been tested 15 times in two months. They knock on my door any time of the day.’
THe BHA have blocked a plan to name Monday’s first race at Leicester the ‘Welcome Back Frankie’ Maiden Stakes, deeming it ‘inappropriate’.