Frankie Dettori

Lanfranco "Frankie" Dettori (born 15 December 1970), is an Italian jockey who was based in England for a career spanning over 35 years.

Dettori was born in Milan, Italy, on 15 December 1970.

His father, Gianfranco Dettori, was a 13 times Italian Champion Jockey, who had won the British 2,000 Guineas in 1975 on the Henry Cecil trained Bolkonski and in 1976 on Wollow, also trained by Cecil.

His mother Mara was a circus performer.

Soon after his birth, Dettori's parents divorced.

Until he was five, Dettori and his sister lived with their mother; after that they lived with their father and stepmother.

As a child, Dettori was more interested in football than racing, but that changed when he was eight and his father bought him a palomino pony called Silvia.

Aged nine, he rode Silvia in the Pony Derby at San Siro racecourse; he came last and fell off after the finishing line.

Dettori left school aged thirteen to work in racing stables and, in July 1985, left Italy for England to work in the yard of trainer Luca Cumani at Newmarket, Suffolk|Newmarket.

It was at first a culture shock, as he had to adapt to a new language, and strange food and drink such as Heinz tinned ravioli and orange squash.

Dettori returned to Italy for the winter of 1986/87 and his first win came on Turin racecourse in November 1986.

In the spring of 1987 Dettori was back in Cumani's yard in Newmarket and started to ride in Britain as an apprentice jockey.

His first win in Britain came at Goodwood on 9 June 1987, riding Lizzy Hare to for Cumani.

That season he rode eight winners, before spending the winter of 1987/88 in California, employed as a work rider for the trainer Richard Cross.

While in California Dettori was taught by jockey Ángel Cordero Jr. how to do a flying dismount, something that would later become his trademark.

At the age of fourteen he went to Newmarket in England to work first as a stable lad, later as apprentice jockey and stable jockey in the yard of Luca Cumani, winning the British champion apprentice jockey in 1989.

In 1989 Dettori became champion apprentice jockey with 75 wins and rode his first winner of a group race, Legal Case in the Select Stakes at Goodwood.

In the spring of 1990 he took up a position of stable jockey to Cumani.

That year he rode eight Group 1 winners for Cumani, and four for other trainers, including Henry Cecil.

Markofdistinction provided him with his first win at Royal Ascot in June 1990 and his first Group 1 win in September.

Still only nineteen, Dettori became the first teenager since Lester Piggott to win more than 100 races in a season, finishing on a total of 149, fourth in the champion jockey table.

The 1991 and 1992 seasons saw fewer winners as Cumani had lost many of his best horses when major owner the Aga Khan removed his horses from training in England.

In 1992 Dettori won the Prix du Jockey Club on Polytain, trained by Antonio Spanu in France, and the Ascot Gold Cup on Drum Taps, trained by Lord Huntingdon.

Before the beginning of the 1993 season he lost his position with Cumani, over his failure to let the trainer know that he was considering taking up the offer of a lucrative contract in Hong Kong.

By now Dettori was enjoying a party lifestyle and in April 1993 was arrested in London for possession of cocaine, which put paid to his prospective contract to ride in Hong Kong.

Dettori was given a police caution for the cocaine offence, after which he concentrated on racing with a renewed dedication, riding 149 winners as a free-lance in 1993.

There was a second victory in the Ascot Gold Cup on Drum Taps, and two Group 1 wins on the sprint mare Lochsong, trained by Ian Balding.

In September 1993, Dettori was signed to ride Sheikh Mohammed's horses trained by Gosden.

He was British flat racing Champion Jockey three times (1994, 1995 and 2004) and rode the winners of 287 Group 1 races including 23 winners of the British Classic Races.

He was appointed stable jockey for Sheikh Mohammed's newly-founded Godolphin Racing in 1994 and during the next eighteen years rode most of his worldwide big race victories in Godolphin's royal-blue colours.

Determined to secure the 1994 jockey championship, Dettori took a break in Morocco to get fit for the beginning of the all-weather season in January and get a head start on jockeys who only rode on turf.

His most celebrated achievement was riding all seven winners on British Festival of Racing Day at Ascot Racecourse on 28 September 1996.

Born in Milan, Dettori is the son of Italian champion jockey Gianfranco Dettori.

In 2000 he survived a light aircraft crash at Newmarket.

Outside of racing he has worked in TV, appearing as a team captain on A Question of Sport from 2002 to 2004, and opened several Italian restaurants in partnership with chef Marco Pierre White.

At the end of 2012, Dettori split from Godolphin Racing, and was suspended from riding for six months after failing a drugs test in France.

From June 2013 to July 2018, he was the retained rider in Britain for Sheikh Joaan Al Thani's Al Shaqab Racing.

Since then, many of his winners including Enable and Stradivarius have come from the stables of John Gosden.

Dettori announced in December 2022 that 2023 would be his final year of professional riding.

In December 2023 he moved to California to continue to race in the United States and on the international circuit.