Frankie Dettori raised his arms and looked to heaven as Bet You Can was led into the winner’s berth at Gavea racecourse, Brazil; moments later those arms were skyward again as the 55-year-old’s knees absorbed the impact of a trademark flying dismount, the last of his incredible career.
A couple of thousand feet above the scene, atop Mount Corcovado, Cristo Redentor – Christ the Redeemer – looked down on the final race victory of one of history’s greatest jockeys, the mighty statue’s concrete hands stretched out wide.
Two years after the Italian reversed his decision to retire and headed instead to North America to carry on, the final raceday of his career had arrived at the end of a farewell tour of South America and it brought one more Classic, a 288th-Group 1 victory, the Grande Premio Estado do Rio de Janeiro.
“I’m emotional, but in a happy way,” Dettori said, admitting to nerves, “To ride a winner on the last day is magical.”
In such moments, life’s troubles, the years of living and working at a stripped-back weight, the controversies, the cocaine positive, the debt, the bankruptcy and £765,000 in unpaid tax, are forgotten as one last career memory is made: a worthy one to bookend the many great triumphs, the champion he has been, the champions he has ridden, and the outright brilliance of the man.
As the people at Gavea welcomed him, farewelled him, applauded him and lauded his great contribution to the sport, they saw only a hero in their midst.
That was Sunday in Brazil: Saturday had belonged to Andrew Fortune.
Four thousand miles eastward from Rio de Janeiro, across the southern Atlantic in Cape Town, the 58-year-old South African also thrust his arms heavenward. His defining, redeeming moment was his first win in the G1 Cape Town Met, in tandem with another seeking redemption, the six-year-old gelding See It Again.
“I just wanted to thank God,” Fortune said in the post-race interview. “I just wanted to thank God but I wanted to do it this way, like this,” he continued and dropped to his knees, looked up and spread his arms, “just say ‘thank you’ … because I came from addiction to everything … nobody wanted me and here I stand on the biggest stage.”
Fortune dropped a couple of inadvertent F-bombs with it; there was no offence meant nor much taken, but enough for him to pick up a fine. This was a man who had been on his proverbial knees – and to depths much lower than that – in his life. Clawing his way back from addiction, 19 years in recovery and counting; unable to get a job as a work rider not so long ago, living 30kg above his riding weight. He won the battle to reduce that weight and the fight to be relicensed, then a year ago he was back.
See It Again was a horse of immense potential, mostly unfulfilled, due to a temperament that had seen him refuse to enter the starting stalls. A move to champion trainer Justin Snaith and Fortune taking the reins at home and at the races, was the change he needed.
“It was like written in the stars,” Fortune said. “You know what I mean?”
Everyone did. He had already won the G1 Majorca Stakes that day aboard Double Grand Slam, but there was something providential about the Met. It was sensed in the build-up, it was felt when he delivered See It Again at the two-pole upsides Legal Counsel, ridden by none other than his own son Aldo Domeyer. Father and son locked in a duel until See It Again drew clear in the last half-furlong.
“It’s amazing how his name is See It Again,” Fortune said. “I keep coming back and coming back; he is called See It Again and I just keep doing it again and again.”
If See It Again’s name was portentous for Fortune, then so was Bet You Can’s for Dettori a day later. The colt was a 14-1 shot in the field of 16, suggesting plenty were betting that he couldn’t.
“That was great to see him winning with that outsider,” Joao Moreira told Idol Horse. “Seeing him getting so much enjoyment out of it, it was a pleasure. Everyone was excited and I’m sure what happened out there will be in his heart forever because we were able to show him how much we appreciate what he has done for the sport.”
The Brazilian great has ridden against the living legend at points around the world and was thrilled to have Dettori riding in Brazil. But with the cosmos – or coincidence, depending on your viewpoint – aligning for Dettori as it had for Fortune, Moreira had to take a backseat and watch on as Bet You Can went away from his beaten 8-1 shot Oregon Moon.
“We knew Bet You Can was a nice horse, but I didn’t have him in my top five, I had him number six,” Moreira continued. “But you would expect Frankie to pull one out of the hat like that because he’s a brilliant rider.”
Moreira, 42, is one of a host of jockeys around the world who have been influenced by Dettori. For the rider from Curitiba, it began when he arrived at the jockey academy in Sao Paulo and saw posters of Dettori on the wall, the only international jockey he had ever seen. Pictures from the peak Godolphin years and the champions he rode.
“Frankie has been my number one idol ever, I watched his riding style, his capability, he was very athletic when he was younger and that was definitely an inspiration to some of us jockeys starting out,” Moreira said. “I wanted to do what he was doing but I couldn’t at that time, so I had to go through all the motions and keep improving, but I remember those very early days when I was starting out, watching him win on horses like Dubai Millennium and Dubawi.
“We’d always be watching him because we knew he’d be riding good horses against good riders and we loved watching those.”
With that context, Moreira said it was “surreal” to see Dettori win the race that is Rio’s 2,000 Guineas, but also a joy to see the skill and horsemanship manifest in what he viewed as “a really good ride” against jockeys who know Gavea’s nuances well.
“The jockeys in Rio are a little bit more aggressive, they rush and just keep on going,” Moreira said. “As I understand it, this horse usually has a good start to get a good position in races but then he needs to take a breather through the second third of the race so he can finish the race off. That’s what they were doing wrong before, and Frankie got it right, he gave him that breather.
“And because the horse was not in the top three or four (in the betting), the other jockeys didn’t consider him, and when they realised he was a challenge it was too late. No one worried about him and then he’s there and he’s gone and won it.”
Moreira likened Dettori to the great Brazilian footballer Pele as he considered the privilege of riding against him in his career and against another Brazilian great, the jockey with the most wins of any other in history, Jorge Ricardo.
“I am very blessed to have been around two guys, Frankie and Jorge,” he said. “Some jockeys came before and some will come after and they won’t get a chance to see and ride against these two great riders. I’ve had the pleasure to ride against both. It’s like someone saying they played with Pele: Messi is playing now and those players playing with him can say what it’s like to play with Messi, but they cannot say how it is to play with Pele. It’s similar to these guys, Jorge and Frankie, to ride against both. They come and go: Frankie is gone into retirement, Jorge will be gone too, and then I will be gone and that’s life.”
Fortune has not gone yet, though his age says his final retirement will not be too far distant, and Saturday might even prove to have been his last Cape Town Met. He too is a rare talent, a champion jockey like Dettori, yet his life’s journey was not destined to take him to the worldwide fame the Italian has enjoyed and endured.
That both men should taste victory in such timely circumstances one after the other, in two incredible days, could only give credence to a sense of divine providence: two unique characters, both with their own troubles and triumphs behind them, each bestowed with their own brand of genius astride a horse, both blessed with a victory of personal significance. As Cristo Redentor looked down on Dettori, so Fortune lifted his face to heaven, put two hands to his mouth and blew an exuberant kiss.
“To God,” he said. ∎
