Star Metro - Dettori -- Racing's great entertainer set for final European hurrah

The departure lounge for the 52-year-old Italian could not be more apposite -- Ascot where on September 28, 1996, he was transformed from a top class jockey into superstardom.

He swept the seven race card.

"It took him to a whole new level," Ascot's long serving Director of Racing Nick Smith told AFP.

"It turned him into a global superstar and he has since finessed into a great ambassador for racing.

"It has been a symbiotic relationship. Ascot has been good for him but he has been ever so slightly helpful for us!" he added laughing.

It would be the unlikeliest of feats if he repeated it before he packs his bags for a spell in California.

Like with so many legends in any walk of life there have been moments where their careers have come under threat and they have had to rise to the challenge to meet them head on.

Dettori's resilience in cheating death in a plane crash in 2000, and bouncing back from a failed doping test in 2012 also earned widespread admiration, though he says of the latter episode "when you are cornered you fight".

The plane crash forged a close bond with former jockey Ray Cochrane, who was to go on to be his agent for many years.

Cochrane it was who pulled him from the wreckage of the plane when it crashed at Newmarket on the way to Goodwood racecourse in Sussex on June 1, 2000.

"I was lucky that I didn't die in the crash itself," Dettori told AFP in 2020.

"I broke my leg and I was lucky that Ray managed to drag me out of the plane and then it exploded. The pilot died, so I was lucky twice.

"We've been through something that you can't explain, put into words, the experience. It was very hard to get out of it, it took me two years.

"We hardly ever talked about that (with other people) because it's something that only me and him understand.

"I should have been dead so I have to thank God I am still here."

- 'A great journey' -

One person who will miss him in particular is the trainer most closely associated with his highs and his lows, John Gosden.

Gosden rescued him twice.

Firstly in 1993 when Dettori saw a lucrative contract to ride in Hong Kong cancelled after British police cautioned him for possession of cocaine.

Gosden it was who offered him another lifeline, as he fondly recalled to AFP, on Remembrance Day November 11, 2014.

Dettori had had a miserable few years, falling out with racing powerhouse owners Godolphin after 18 years and a six-month suspension for failing a dope test in France.

"He was in freefall and a rather sad two years scraping around for any ride he could get," Gosden told AFP.

"It (being a jockey) is a great way of life but the pole is very slippery. It is not a bed of roses, there are certainly some thorns in it."

Fortunately for Dettori, both Cochrane and Gosden provided the wise counsel that had been lacking when he first achieved super stardom in the 1990s.

"I equate it to a young boxer who had some success and collects a whole set of hangers on," said Gosden.

"They (the hangers on) have a good way of burning through the money and taking you to a lot of the wrong places and when you are young and have a lot of money one has to be wary of that and Frankie was no exception."

Dettori, though, is rather nonchalant about his resilience.

"I have been lucky as well," he told AFP prior to his final ride at Longchamp earlier this month.

"I always believed in myself and urged myself to keep going.

As for his legacy he is rightly proud of it.

"I have done my bit," he said.

"I am fifth in all time winners in England, I have won 23 classics.

"I don't think I could have done any more.

"It's been a great journey."

F.Davis--SMC