"It has been a giddy, glorious and occasionally bumpy ride, but this time, it seems, Frankie Dettori's mind is made up. The most storied jockey of the past 40 years will effectively head into retirement after the main card at the Breeders' Cup at Del Mar on Saturday, when he will have three chances to add a farewell Grade One winner to nearly 300 on his record already."
"In a world that has been fragmented by social media and the internet, Dettori may well be the last racing figure who will ever enjoy such instant name-recognition across a broad swathe of the British population. Dettori's lifetime in the sport, after all, dates back to an era when A Question Of Sport regularly pulled in more than 10 million viewers, and a three-year stint as a team captain was more than enough to establish him as the bubbly, irrepressible face of racing."
"It is, in many respects, a hard-won celebrity, a double-edged reward for events both on and off the track that have repeatedly pushed Dettori onto the front pages, ever since the unforgettable afternoon at Ascot in 1996 when he defied odds of 25,000-1 to ride all seven winners on the card. In June 2000, he was pulled from the burning wreckage of a light aircraft by his fellow rider, Ray Cochrane, after a crash on takeoff in which the plane's pilot was killed."
Frankie Dettori will effectively retire after the main card at the Breeders' Cup at Del Mar, leaving after a career with nearly 300 Grade One winners. He is one of the most storied jockeys of the past 40 years, achieving widespread name-recognition across Britain. His prominence dates to an era of high television audiences and a three-year stint as a team captain that made him the face of racing. His career includes the unforgettable Ascot day in 1996 when he rode all seven winners, a near-fatal plane crash in June 2000, and his publicized end to chasing a Derby win in 2007.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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