Under Starters Orders - Frankie Dettori

Features | 4th June 2020

The most famous jockey in British horse racing, Frankie Dettori. The man behind the flying dismount and the magnificent seven.

Italian-born Frankie Dettori started his riding career as an apprentice jockey aged just 14.

By 1990, he had become the first teenager since the famed Lester Piggott to ride 100 winners in a British season.

Name: Lanfranco “Frankie” Dettori

Age: 49

Career highlight: Riding the ‘Magnificent Seven’ (all seven winners) at Ascot Racecourse in 1996.

Interesting fact: Frankie owns two pet emus.

In 1996, Frankie rode his famous ‘Magnificent Seven’ at Ascot, a near impossible feat that left the bookmakers millions of pounds worse off.

Fujiyama Crest, the horse on which he won the seventh and final race, became so special to Frankie that after the horse’s racing career came to an end, the jockey bought the horse to keep as a much-loved family pet until he died in 2015 at the age of 23.

In 2000, Frankie was badly injured after the airplane he was travelling in crashed just moments after taking off. Frankie was pulled from the burning wreckage; it was deemed a miracle that anyone in the plane escaped alive.

Frankie, who is known for his flamboyant flying dismounts, has won a over 3,200 races over his career.

Over the past three years, he has partnered some of the nation’s most loved horses, including wonder-mare Enable and the small but mighty Stradivarius. He was named Longines World’s Best Jockey in 2019.

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