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Dettori Riding High on the Long Goodbye

Frankie Dettori's retirement this winter has acquired a caveat: 'in theory.' So, in theory, the most famous jockey since Lester Piggott will ride in his last English Classic, the St Leger, at Doncaster this weekend.

More garlands, perhaps more tears shed. But Dettori's valedictory lap of world racing at 52-years-old is becoming a little complicated. With every big prize won, and each sparkling performance in the saddle, the fait accompli of his departure feels less secure.

To us, the grateful audience, the response to Dettori's radiant affirmation of his talent is straightforward: stay, don't go, U-turn, don't deprive us of the comfort of having the finest jockey perched astride our bets. In entertainment industry lore you go out at the top, leaving them wanting more. Yet there is always the risk of mistiming it. Not that any of us should be telling Dettori what to do. The dilemma, though, is relatable, for people in all professions. When have you reached 'enough'?

The cost to departing stars is high. Limelight, validation, the adrenaline-fix of winning, structure, discipline, purpose and…yes, the money. There is a Group 1 pot of riches that Dettori will have to forego if he wakes on Christmas day an ex-jockey. In these autumn months he will ride work on young horses that burn with promise. Someone else could be holding those reins next spring. Another grinning rider might be rolling in that money.

Dettori's quandary has echoes across the world of sport. The finite nature of any great career is better managed than denied. It hurts to call time. Many experience it as a bereavement. A superstar's halcyon days can become a clutter of photos and trophies that suffuse a home with a sense of loss. Some never properly adapt.

The finite nature of any great career is better managed than denied.

The memory of Roger Federer weeping courtside at London's O2 Arena last year after his final tennis match was a watery illustration of how painful and bewildering an ending can be. Federer cried so hard that Rafael Nadal found himself sobbing in sympathy. The Manchester United full-back Gary Neville walked off the pitch one day in February 2011 and retired there and then, after 602 appearances for his club. His body had betrayed him. Others cling on, refusing to believe the evidence of their decline or concealing it with bravado.

In many sports life is bisected in the mid-Thirties. Dettori is way beyond that point. Piggott was 59 when he finally retired, after a sensational comeback five years previously. Dettori's riding career spans 37 years, with plenty of undulations. However boyish his public face, he is a veteran in every sense. His current form however renders his age almost an abstraction.

Liberated, perhaps, by knowing the curtain is descending, he is riding with boldness, freedom and precision. His prime is not receding so much as finding fresh expression. His winning ride on Mostahdaf in the Juddmonte International at York on August 23 for example was not the act of a man raging against the dying of the light.

His recent joke about carrying on if a juicy retainer came his way may have been mischievous. But it was reasonable to wonder whether we were hearing the first crack in his plan to abdicate to a new life in London's Mayfair, where high society would love him, but the screens would show big races being won by horses he could have ridden. Here too he would be gambling. Racing offers no guarantees, even to household names, that this year's joy will stretch to next season.

An emotional farewell for Roger Federer in London | Getty

Dettori's retirement will flatten us, for a while. We will slide though the gears of elegy, gratitude, nostalgia and a tinge of fear about whether anyone can replace him adequately on racing's billboard.

We know the farewell tour is due to take in Champions Day at Ascot, then marquee days overseas. We know too that he has three options: stick with his retirement plan, reverse it, or step down and come back later, after a change of pace. Piggott retired but returned at 54. Twelve days after renewing his licence he won the 1990 Breeders' Cup Mile on Royal Academy. “No moment in my career ever tasted sweeter,” Piggott said then. The difference is that there will be more facets to Dettori's post-riding life than there were to Lester Piggott's.

There are things we cannot see – the sacrifices made by the Dettori family, which he may want to repay; the toll of weight-management; the travelling and stress, the urge to try new things. Wanting to retire is easier than being forced to. We can only guess how much of Dettori's exuberance this summer is rooted in a sense of impending liberation.

With every sunset comes a fear of the dark. Nobody in racing beyond his rivals in the weighing room wants to say goodbye to Frankie Dettori (even they will feel conflicted, because he brings the crowds in). This feels like a very public dilemma. In reality, it's intensely personal.

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Epsom Names Race in Memory of Lester Piggott

Epsom Downs Racecourse has announced the introduction of the Lester Piggott Handicap S. on Derby Day, to be run in memory of the legendary jockey who died a year ago at the age of 86. Frankie Dettori will lay a wreath at Piggott's commemorative statue on Saturday.

“It is an honour to be asked to lay a wreath at Lester's statue on Derby Day,” Dettori said. “He was a hero of mine who then became a good friend and it's impossible to measure the impact he had on me, both as a person and a jockey throughout my life. I'm sure it will be a poignant and emotional moment for many reasons and I'm grateful to Epsom Downs for inviting me to lead this year's tributes to Lester on my last Derby Day as a jockey.”

Piggott rode in the Derby 36 times between 1951 and 1994 and won nine times, starting with Never Say Die in 1954 and followed by Crepello (1957), St Paddy (1960), Sir Ivor (1968), Nijinsky (1970), Roberto (1972), Empery (1976), The Minstrel (1977) and Teenoso (1983). Nicknamed 'The Long Fellow', Piggott also won the Oaks six times and the Coronation Cup on nine occasions.

“For so many of us, Lester Piggott is synonymous with the Derby and Epsom Downs like no other jockey before or since,” said Brian Finch, Chair of Epsom Downs Racecourse. “Lester sadly passed away just six days before the Derby in 2022 and we ran the Derby in his memory. For such a distinguished figure in the long history of the Derby, and with his unprecedented achievements unlikely to be matched, we felt it was important to establish a permanent annual commemoration and celebration of Lester's life on Derby Day.”

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Coolmore’s John Magnier The 2022 Recipient Of The Sir Peter O’Sullevan Award

Coolmore's John Magnier was the recipient of the 2022 Peter O'Sullevan Award and was celebrated at the 25th edition of the Peter O'Sullevan Annual Award Lunch in London on Thursday. The 74-year-old received his award from JP McManus at Coolmore, as he was not present at the lunch.

“I don't deserve it, but I'm happy to get it,” Magnier told ITV Racing anchor Ed Chamberlin in an interview, which was played during the ceremony. “I'm blown away by it, really.”

Magnier spoke in favour of racing's various factions coming together to work for the good of the whole sport.

“Our people running the sport really have to make some tough decisions–and when they make tough decisions, the rest of us are going to have to row in behind them. There are too many sectional interests pulling in different directions.”

Internationally renowned for his bloodstock acumen, the owner-breeder also reminisced about various bloodstock adventures, from Camelot (GB)'s Triple Crown bid with a near-miss in the G1 St Leger, to losing out to Juddmonte on the colt that would subsequently become the undefeated, wunderkind Frankel (GB) (Galileo {Ire}).

“That was tough to take, all right,” said Magnier of the Doncaster reverse, adding of the Triple Crown, “It's something we would love to do one day. We won't give up.

“Frankel was a foal share with Juddmonte. Every second year we got the first pick. That year Juddmonte had the first pick and they picked Frankel. That was another one that got away.”

Added Magnier, whose Vincent O'Brien-trained Robert Sangster-owned El Gran Senor lost the G1 Derby in 1984 to Secreto, who was trained by the latter's son David, “He [El Gran Senor] was sold for $80 million if he had won the Derby. That's racing. In actual fact, I had a bet on Secreto, and Ladbrokes shut my account after. Mike Dillon gave me the cheque and I still have it framed in my office. We were able to buy a drink that night, anyway.”

Besides affirming Coolmore's ambition to secure the Triple Crown, Magnier emphasised the organisation's continued commitment to the Blue Riband. Coolmore and its affiliates have won nine Derbys since 2001, eight under the watchful eye of Ballydoyle's resident trainer Aidan O'Brien.

“A horse has to have everything to win at Epsom,” he said. “He has to have speed. He has to have stamina. He has to have soundness. He has to have courage. He has to go through the razzamatazz of the day. It's the complete test of the horse.

“There's an interesting story [on hiring Aidan]. He came here to the office, and I was going to have a chat with him to see if we could work something out. He said to me he had been here before. I said to him, 'What were you doing here before?' He said he had tried to get a job here and had met Christy Grassick. I asked him what happened, and he said he hadn't given him the job. I said, 'Clever of him. Christy could have lost his job!'”

He added of Vincent O'Brien, who preceded O'Brien at Rosegreen, “He understood all aspects of the business. He understood the American bloodlines, he understood the finance and he understood if you didn't have the owner, you weren't going to get the horse. He was a man apart, really. You couldn't help but learn from him. He was a genius.

Magnier also paid tribute to his late mother, Evie Stockwell, The Queen, as well as legendary jockey Lester Piggott, who all died this year.

“She loved the horses and spent two or three hours reading the Racing Post,” reflected Magnier on his mother, who enjoyed Breeders' Cup success as an owner-breeder with Hit It A Bomb (War Front). “It was a big part of her life.

“She [The Queen] was such a positive for racing. It will be very tough to manage without her.”

Of Piggott, Magnier said, “You could hear the crack of Lester's whip. He would probably get jailed today if he did that, but he was an artist at work. He had an aura about him. If he came into a room, you kind of knew he was there. He would come to Ballydoyle, especially in the spring, have a few glasses of champagne and smoke a cigar. He was very interesting.”

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This Side Up: A Long Fellow, And The Longest Reign

The bit that most concerns us, naturally, is that the race is not to the swift–albeit ours is a business that will also disclose, fairly reliably, that nor is the battle to the strong; bread to the wise; riches to men of understanding; or favor to those of skill. “Time and chance happen to them all.”

So, yes, we all know that before anything else we require a little luck. But the whole point of Epsom, as the definitive measure of the Thoroughbred, is that while your horse must certainly be swift and strong, he also requires agility and, above all, endurance. And that latter element certainly sets the tone for the 243rd running of what remains, with all due respect to the even older St Leger, the most venerable horserace on the planet.

Because on Saturday, by some poignant alignment of the stars, the Derby will have a far broader reach than has lately been the case in Britain, thanks to two single spans of human life that have indelibly shaped even an institution that has doughtily survived empires, wars and, of course, plagues.

The race is being run in memory of Lester Piggott, the only jockey to win it nine times, whose epic tale drew to a close last Sunday. And it will also be a centerpiece of a four-day national holiday for the unprecedented 70th anniversary of the Queen's accession to the throne.

For a long time, the monarch had hoped to insist that one perennial ritual would retain its place in the Jubilee pageant, but even her indefatigability has its limits, at 96, and she has reluctantly accepted that she will not make it to the royal box at Epsom. Until last year, when social distancing intervened, she had missed only three Derbies since the Second World War.

Though she has won the other four Classics, she has never got closer to the Derby itself than immediately after her coronation, when Pinza had the effrontery to deny the young Queen's runner by four lengths. But that does not alter the fact that her passion for the Thoroughbred, and its proud English heritage, has proved a priceless boon to the sport through a reign that has measured a profound demographic alienation from to its roots in rural life.

The year after Pinza beat Aureole, the teenaged Piggott made his precocious Epsom breakthrough on Never Say Die, who had started life on Jonabell Farm and so became the first Kentucky-foaled Derby winner. Never Say Die! An apt enough maxim, for a man who would serve a prison sentence before coming out of retirement at 54 and winning the GI Breeders' Cup Mile 10 days later. That was such an outlandish tale that we tend to overlook what a last-ditch gamble was Royal Academy, as a yearling, for a trainer with whom Piggott had shared four Derbies in their mutual heyday–all with North American-breds.

In Vincent O'Brien no less than Piggott, then, we see how competitive longevity discloses an element of stubbornness, nearly of obduracy, as the vital spark of all achievement. And we also see it in Frankie Dettori, the only jockey since Piggott to find a niche in British popular culture, though still seven Derbies behind him at the age of 51.

Dettori rides Piz Badile (Ire) (Ulysses {Ire}) for Donnacha O'Brien, who is less than half his age. The Niarchos family must be pretty excited by the possibility of the ultimate dividend from such a bold mating, both sire and dam being out of daughters of Lingerie (GB). That mare herself condenses much the same kind of transatlantic cross-pollination as was integral to O'Brien and Piggott's golden age: her sire was an Epsom Derby winner, by another Epsom Derby winner foaled in Virginia; and her dam, Arc runner-up Northern Trick, was by Northern Dancer from an American family. And while both the parents of Ulysses won Epsom Classics, from top to bottom Piz Badile's pedigree is basically held together by loop after loop of Mr Prospector and Northern Dancer.
So while an Englishman is this week asking you to indulge a parochial theme, it does contain one or two more universal strands. For one thing, all breeders build their families with that same competitive perseverance: a willingness to ride out the inevitable ebb tides and, if you want to breed a Classic winner, a degree of obstinacy in favoring blood that hasn't been diluted by fast-buck fads.

That, as I am always reminding people, is actually a far bigger problem among British and Irish breeders than it is in Kentucky, where they do still want speed to be carried through two turns on the first Saturday in May. The Epsom Derby has paid a price for that, over recent years, but it feels as though we are slowly witnessing a turn of the dial and 17 runners should certainly assure the Queen a fitting cavalcade. One ongoing factor is the emergence of so many promising sons of Galileo (Ire) to contest the succession, many of them relatively affordable. The late king retains his customary footprint in this field, but it tells you everything that his son Nathaniel (Ire)–sire of warm favorite Desert Crown (GB)–is still standing at just £15,000 despite coming up with champion Enable (GB) among five Group 1 winners in his first three crops.

The late Galileo | Coolmore photo

But never say die. Aside from Galileo, Desert Crown's three other grandparents were foaled in North America. In the next generation, the ratio reads one from Britain, seven from America; and the next offers one from Britain, and 15 from America. In its puerile addiction to precocity and dash, and its disdain for stallions like Nathaniel, the European commercial market will eventually drive far-sighted and ambitious breeders back over the water to mine those speed-carrying reserves in Kentucky.

Like all his predecessors, the 243rd Derby winner will be a living, breathing register of selective breeding across eras defined by emperors of the breed like Galileo and Northern Dancer. But even as long a game as breeding is sustained by daily commitment, by the accretion of small decisions over the years. That's not so different from the indomitability we celebrated in Piggott, and the same steadfast adherence to standards being saluted in a Queen born just before Bubbling Over won what was only the 52nd running of the Kentucky Derby.

He became the sire of Hildene, dam of one Preakness winner in Hill Prince and now seventh dam of another, in Early Voting. A long game, then, and a “Long Fellow” too. That was what they used to call Lester, on account of his unwonted height; so let's make one last cultural transfer, and invoke the words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. For the same poem that urged us to leave “footsteps on the sands of time”–albeit few of us will leave an imprint quite like those we trace, back through the decades, at Epsom on Saturday–concludes with these lines:

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

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