Jay Hovdey catches up with legendary jockey in the wake of a super Sunday in which he landed a brilliant graded stakes double highlighted by Newgate’s triumph in the Santa Anita Handicap
If Frankie Dettori is on a retirement tour, what must it look like when he was hard at work winning British championships and European Classics?
This winter at Santa Anita, with its dreary days of rain punctuated by stretches of sparkling blue skies and cool afternoons, Dettori has been doing a pretty good impression of a hungry journeyman, 53 and fit, willing and able to answer any call provided by his agent, the veteran Ron Anderson.
Through the racing of March 4, Dettori sat fourth in the Santa Anita standings with 25 winners from 132 mounts, trailing only perennial leaders Juan Hernandez and Flavien Prat, and fellow Italian expat Antonio Fresu.
The afternoon of Sunday, March 3, provided Dettori with his most spectacular North American success since taking the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf aboard Inspiral at Santa Anita last November, when he won the San Felipe Stakes aboard the million-dollar three-year-old Imagination and the 87th running Santa Anita Handicap with four-year-old colt Newgate.
Both are trained by Bob Baffert, but Dettori has spread himself generously around local stables, large and small. His 25 winners have come courtesy of 17 different trainers.
On the quiet Wednesday after his stakes feast, Dettori reflected on adding the historic Santa Anita Handicap to his list of accomplishments, and what life was like as a full-time California jockey in the very active autumn of a singular career.
“I spent four winters here, 1997 through 1990, to polish up my style and learn from the best jockeys in the world, to come here and soak it all up,” Dettori said. “And without a doubt, for that era, they were the best jockeys in the world – Shoemaker, Pincay, Delahoussaye, McCarron, Stevens.
“That means I grew up in an era watching the great Charlie Whittingham, races with Ferdinand and Alysheba, and many, many other champion horses, trainers, and jockeys. That’s why winning the Santa Anita Handicap meant a great deal to me. A lot of jockeys do not understand the magnitude of the Big ’Cap. But it was a big feather in my cap to do that.”
The teenage son of Italian champion Gianfranco Dettori rode out mornings for Richard Mandella and Richard Cross, and by the winter of 1989-90 he was landing a respectable number of mounts as an apprentice. Dettori’s most memorable experience, however, came on Feb. 3, 1990, when the freshly turned 19-year-old helped say farewell to Bill Shoemaker on the day of his final ride after 41 years in the saddle.
“I was riding on the day, but I didn’t ride against him ever,” Dettori said. “Unfortunately for me, he retired just as I was beginning. We all carried him back to the room on our shoulders – one of the pictures has been in newspapers.”
Have you gone mad?
Now Dettori has returned, and any suggestion that he is merely a ceremonial veteran going through the motions is countered by the nine rides he had on Santa Anita Handicap day.
“Even my dad said, ‘Have you gone mad?’” Dettori said with a laugh. “But I’m keeping very fit, and I enjoy what I’m doing. When you’re having fun, it’s easy. Not ‘easy,’ but a pleasure.
“I very much look forward to going to ride races on the weekends,” he went on. “I’m riding for all kinds of different trainers and owners. We have a very good jocks room, guys young, old, competitive. There’s the Italian corner – myself, Antonio Fresu, and Umberto Rispoli. Poor Edwin Maldonado – ‘The Candyman’ – is between us, so we bamboozle him with Italian.
“There’s the French corner – Flav and Florent Geroux when he comes to town. And then you’ve got the young Mexicans, so there’s a bit of everything. Tyler Baze and Drayden Van Dyke are outnumbered. They’re the only two who stand up for the national anthem. The rest are from other countries!”
Dettori had never ridden Imagination in any of the colt’s four starts before the San Felipe. On paper, his toughest opposition appeared to be his Baffert stablemate, Wine Me Up, ridden by Juan Hernandez.
“Bob’s only concern was that he could get a little bit frisky with the pony, so keep him away,” Dettori said. “I did that, and he was fine – a lovely, big horse.
“Being a small field, Bob kind of left it up to me,” he continued. “He’s got a bit of speed, so you can put him in the spot you want. Flavien told Bob in the last one he moved too soon and got beaten on the line, so Bob told me to bear that in mind. He jumped well, but unfortunately Hector Berrios’s horse [Scatify] was running off. He ran into my horse and clipped his back legs. At that, my horse got frightened and took off in the backstretch.
Dueling with the Captain
“That wasn’t my plan,” Dettori said, “so I kind of took him away from the others to get him to come back underneath me, to get him going at my normal tempo instead of running off. I was able to get him back, then we got in a nice duel with Juan – I call him ‘The Captain’. He is very hard to beat, very competitive. He’s a great jockey and doesn’t make many mistakes.”
Imagination won by a nose, and in a normal season he would be mentioned among the Kentucky Derby candidates. But with Baffert’s horses banned by Churchill Downs from competing this year, Dettori may have to be content to try other major prizes with the son of Into Mischief.
“My horse was very courageous because of what happened in the beginning of the race,” Dettori said. “It was not his fault. The situation unfolded against him a little bit, and he still got the job done. I told Bob it didn’t work out like I wanted it to, so I’m sure we have room for improvement. I like the way he didn’t give up and fought all the way to the wire.”
Newgate, on the other hand, is an old pal, which made the Santa Anita Handicap triumph that much sweeter. The margin was a head over the Argentinean longshot, Subsanador.
“He was my possible Kentucky Derby ride last year,” Dettori said of Newgate. “I loved the horse from then, so I’ve got a soft spot for him. He had a small injury, and Bob and the owners gave him plenty of time to come back. I was delighted to be back on the horse in January.
“What threw me off was coming back at 6½ furlongs,” he said, referring to Newgate’s second-place finish in an allowance race. “But Bob knows what he’s doing. I couldn’t ride him in his next race because I was in Florida, when he was a good second again. I thought that would put him spot-on for the Big ’Cap, so at that point the mile and a quarter was my only concern. We got up right on the line, though the South American horse never gave up.”
If California is the launch point of Dettori’s final act, he is making the most of the situation. With just over $2 million in mount earnings so far in 2024, he ranks 10th in North America. He has left the particulars of the next several months in the hands of his agent.
“I told Ron, ‘You deal with it. Send me wherever you want,’” Dettori said. “I won’t complain about any challenge he throws at me. I can easily live out of a suitcase. So I could be anywhere this year – Dubai comes up next, and then Keeneland. But then Saratoga, Del Mar, Florida – I don’t mind. I’ve been doing that all my life.”
Something to remember
In that spirit of mobility, Dettori is living modestly this winter in a place near Santa Anita, a far cry from his estate in Newmarket.
“I didn’t want a big house with a pool, all that,” he said. “Just an apartment. Something with a key, in and out. My friend Joe Bravo, who was riding here, said he was thinking about going back to Florida and had a lease on a place. If I liked it, I could just pick up the rent. One bedroom, left me everything – couch, TV, kitchen stuff, even a half a bottle of tequila. I did put up a few pictures, like Spectacular Bid and Bill Shoemaker winning the Big ’Cap’.”
With four and sometimes only three days of racing per week and small fields, jockeys in Southern California need to be creative in their increasing blocs of idle time. Dettori has made the most of his West Coast adventure with the help of his wife, Catherine. They will celebrate their 27th anniversary in July.
“Anyone thinks I’m doing nothing between riding days is wrong,” he said. “I’m a person who does not sit still. I need to keep my head occupied as much as possible. I go to the gym every day, for fitness and to keep my weight right.
“My wife is new to the area, so on the days off we do as much as we can. Like tonight, I’ve got a mate here from Dubai so we’ll take him to the Lakers. Yesterday we went down to Santa Monica. I went to the Super Bowl, and we went to Vegas for some shows.
“Right now Catherine is in Mexico,” Dettori added. “It’s her 50th birthday tomorrow, and next week I’m going to join her for two or three days, with some of our kids. She said, ‘Don’t buy me another necklace.’ Okay. So I chartered a big yacht for us and the kids to go whale watching. It will be something to remember.”
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