Frankie: The Autobiography of Frankie Dettori. Frankie Dettori

look after his own career and was not going to let me drag him down! Years later we would become the best of buddies working together for Godolphin. Eventually I signed up with Cliff Woof who’d just opened a jockey’s agency with Willie Ryan as his first client.

      After a winter tightening up my style in the warmer climate of California, I felt stronger and more confident than before and was determined to make a quick start in my second season. Once again rides were scarce in the opening weeks, until I was given a crucial opportunity on Heroes Sash for Luca Cumani in a valuable race at Haydock at the end of April. Ray Cochrane, by then our stable jockey, was at Newmarket for the 2,000 Guineas that day. When he heard Luca was struggling to find a suitable rider for Heroes Sash, he suggested ‘Give the kid a chance.’ Heroes Sash didn’t win but I did nothing wrong and from that point I started to pick up some decent spare rides.

      Nineteen eighty-eight was the year of Kahyasi who gave Luca his first Derby success. The horse was owned by the Aga Khan and looked after by my pal Andy Keates, who’d been telling us all winter that his charge was Derby material. Most of the lads were on at nice prices. I remember watching on TV in my tracksuit as Ray brought him through to win at Epsom, before setting off for a run to try to lose some weight as I had a light ride at Carlisle the next day. I put it all back on and more at a mother and a father of a Derby victory party that night which carried on until the early hours.

      There was a price to pay the following morning as, with thumping heads, Colin and I set off on the four-hour journey to Carlisle, wearing tracksuits, with the heating turned full up on a boiling hot summer day. We both felt terrible—which probably explains why, between us, we failed to tack up his mount Expound securely for the opening race. As a result his saddle began to slip after a furlong and Expound was beaten in a photo finish with Colin perched precariously on his back.

      Five minutes later, his work completed for the afternoon, Colin came swanning into the weighing room clutching a large ice-cream. It was too much for me as I struggled to boil away excess pounds for my single, lightweight ride which I knew had little chance. I seized the ice-cream, spread it all over Colin’s face and fled into the sauna before he could retaliate.

      Things began to pick up later in June with my first double win on Norman Invader and Mischievous Miss at Redcar, swiftly followed by the success of Follow The Drum at Folkestone. Andy was unable to lead up Norman Invader as he was recovering at home from serious injuries sustained when the horse kicked him in the face. He was found unconscious in Norman Invader’s box with his face in bits, and countless broken bones in his jaw and cheek which caused him to be off work for almost three months.

      Early in July I won on a nice horse of Luca’s called Casey at Catterick. We were hacking up until I complicated matters by easing him so heavily in the closing stages that we only just scraped home by a neck from the fast-finishing runner-up Kirsheda. Some of the Yorkshire punters shouted abuse at me as I returned to unsaddle, but I was certain that we’d held on. I was smiling when I came back, but only with relief, and the stewards gave me a telling-off for being too confident. If I’d been caught on Casey, they warned, I would have been suspended and heavily fined. The next morning I stole the headlines for all the wrong reasons. The Racing Post declared ‘Frankie Lives Dangerously’.

      Worse followed when Luca called me in and watched the video with me before delivering an almighty rocket. A few days later Casey’s owner, Gerald Leigh, sent me a photograph of the win with a cryptic note which read ‘Too much attention to the camera and not enough to the finish!’

      I’d been waiting for the chance to gain my revenge on Norman Invader for almost killing Andy and finally got the chance when I was booked to ride him in the Magnet Cup at York. I taped a piece of lead into the flap of my whip, then started to hit Norman Invader with it as soon as we moved into contention about three furlongs from home. I am ashamed to admit that I really wanted to hurt the horse, to punish him for what he had done to Andy. I gave him a good hiding. It was madness, of course, a horrible thing to do. The chief sufferer, apart from the horse, was my greatest friend Colin Rate who was making a move up my inner on Chartino. In a sense I killed two birds with one stone. As Norman Invader hung left-handed away from the whip he almost put Colin over the rails. I heard a lot of cursing and shouting just behind me in a familiar Geordie accent, but by then the damage had been done and both of us finished towards the rear. Somehow the stewards missed what happened—but Luca didn’t and we were both on the carpet in his office once more. If he’d known about my whip I suspect I would have been looking for alternative employment.

      A stormy July reached its climax ten days later when I returned to Catterick to ride Torkabar, owned by the Aga Khan. The horse was a red-hot favourite to win an uncompetitive maiden, but he was a monkey and had thrown away victory in our previous race at York by veering violently in the closing stages. Once again he was determined not to put his best foot forward. The more I asked, the more he resisted.

      Just after we passed the line a well beaten third I lashed out with my whip in temper and struck him over the head. It was done out of frustration after losing my rag, and I knew immediately I was in the wrong because hitting horses on the head is unacceptable. It was a childish thing to do. Once again I was marched before the Catterick stewards and this time they weren’t so lenient. I made up some story about giving him a tap to prevent him ducking through a gate towards the paddock. The panel listened in stony silence before banning me for three days for improper riding. That wasn’t the end of the matter.

      The following morning I was standing in the doorway of a stable in the bottom yard, facing inwards, half-heartedly scratching around in the straw with a pitchfork when I received a painful kick up the backside which sent me sprawling head first in the far corner of the box. I almost ended up in the feed manger. The next moment Ray Cochrane was leaning over me, going absolutely mad, shouting and screaming that I’d let the side down by my treatment of Torkabar. It was bad enough, he suggested, to strike any horse over the head. But to do it to one belonging to the stable’s principal owner, the Aga Khan, was idiotic. I quickly got the message and started mucking out the stable with new vigour, then slowed down again as soon as Ray disappeared out of sight.

      Luca was away in America at the sales, but when he returned he let me have it with both barrels and promptly suspended me from riding for a further two weeks. A fortnight on the sidelines at that stage seemed like a lifetime, but I knew I was in the wrong so I had to take it on the chin.

      The second head lad Stuart Jackson was also keen to keep my feet firmly on the floor. He always seemed to be waiting for me when I bounced into the yard after a good day at the races. Some days he’d hide behind a door, then kick me in the backside for the hell of it. On other occasions he’d ask how the race had gone, listen to my description of how clever I’d been, then wait until my back had turned before kicking me. When I protested he’d reply mysteriously ‘You know what that’s for.’ It was all part of Luca’s strategy to keep my head from swelling.

      I picked up the winning thread again on Burnt Fingers at Haydock on 5 August and completed my second double at Yarmouth later in the month. I also collected a fine of £200 on the same afternoon for giving one of Luca’s a ‘quiet run’. Since Allez Au Bon wasn’t fit enough to do himself justice in the race, Luca was keen that I looked after him and didn’t finish too close to the red-hot favourite, Pure Genius, who won easily. Unfortunately I overdid the waiting tactics.

      August ended with a significant breakthrough with my first winners for the multiple champion trainer Henry Cecil—who was still the King and had shared two victories in the 2,000 Guineas with my father. I was thrilled that Henry turned to me when Steve Cauthen was injured. My first success for him came in a maiden race at Newmarket on Opening Verse, who eventually won the Breeders’ Cup mile in America. Two days later I rode my second winner for Henry as part of another double at Wolverhampton.

      It had been an eventful season and the best was yet to come. Late in September Luca called me into his office to say that the Aga Khan would be running two pacemakers for our Derby winner Kahyasi in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, the highlight of the season in Paris, and I would be on one of them—Roushayd. It was a fantastic opportunity for someone with such limited experience. The Aga must have forgiven me for my behaviour on Torkabar.

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