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1 month ago
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Frankie Dettori has announced he will end his two-year stint riding in the US after the main card of the 2025 Breeders’ Cup in Del Mar on Saturday, before “concluding my career with a few rides in South America, something I’ve always wanted to do”.
Dettori, 54, first announced his retirement in December 2022, saying that he would take his final rides at the 2023 Breeders’ Cup, but subsequently decided to move to the lucrative US circuit instead. He has enjoyed two successful seasons, initially on the west coast and more recently from a base in Florida, and will now bow out at the highest level at the end of a career which started as a teenager in Italy.
In a statement Dettori said: “It has been an honour to compete at the highest level of this sport for over four decades. I’m deeply grateful to my family, the owners, trainers, stable staff and, of course, the supporters who have made my career possible.
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“From the bottom of my heart, thank you to everyone who has supported me throughout this incredible journey. Ciao, Frankie.”
Dettori is a top-25 rider in the US in terms of prize-money earnings and the fourth-most successful jockey for earnings per winner. His mounts on Saturday include two horses that he rode to victory in Grade One events last time out: Khaadem, in the Turf Sprint, and Wimbledon Hawkeye, in the Turf.
Dettori rode his first winner in Italy in 1986 and his first in Britain a year later, before running away with the apprentice title in 1989. He was the UK’s champion jockey for first time in 1994, retained the title the following season and added his third and final championship in 2004.
His place in racing history was assured as early as September 1996, when he rode all seven winners on a valuable card at Ascot, while he was also associated with a series of champions during a 20-year tenure as No 1 jockey to Sheikh Mohammed’s powerful Godolphin operation.
In more recent years, he was the regular partner of the dual Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner Enable and the outstanding stayer Stradivarius.
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Four years after his “Magnificent Seven” at Ascot, Dettori was involved in a plane crash at Newmarket in which his pilot was killed. He was also banned for six months in 2012 after testing positive for a metabolite of cocaine while riding in France. More recently it emerged that he was filing for bankruptcy, having been unable to reach an agreement with HMRC over a long-running tax-avoidance case.
While it remains to be seen which runner in South America goes into the history books as Dettori’s last ride in public, his final start at Grade One level will be aboard the Japanese-trained Argine in the Breeders’ Cup Mile at 11.05pm GMT on Saturday.
His other rides over the two day meeting are Aspect Island (9.45pm GMT) in the Juvenile Turf Sprint and Imaginationthelady (11.05pm GMT) in the Juvenile Fillies’ Turf on Friday, and Wimbledon Hawkeye (9.41pm GMT) and Khaadem (7.41pm GMT) in the Turf Sprint on Saturday.
