‘Zio’, Mentor, Idol: Frankie Dettori And The ‘Italian Corner’ Of The Santa Anita Jockeys’ Room

FRANKIE DETTORI WALKED INTO the Santa Anita jockeys’ room and made his way over to the ‘Italian corner.’ That’s where he’d spent almost every race day for the past several months alongside his compatriots Umberto Rispoli and Antonio Fresu. But something was different this time.

“I took his locker,” says Fresu, amused at the mischief in the memory.

It was early June 2024, close to the end of the Santa Anita Winter-Spring season, and Dettori had returned from a trip east, winning a big stakes race at Penn National.

“He said, ‘Where’s my locker? Come on, you should respect the oldest one,’” Fresu continues. “I said, ‘Come on, Zio, you went away and now you’re coming back? You need to take another spot: I’m not going to move now, I’m based here, maybe you’re not going to stay here, maybe you’re going to retire!’ And we just laughed about it.”

Zio is the Italian word for Uncle. But even that playful term of warm affection is rooted in a much deeper respect.

“To horseracing he’s Tiger Woods, he’s Michael Schumacher, he’s Valentino Rossi, he’s Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo,” says Rispoli.

Dettori, 53, is an all-time great. He is one of the best jockeys the world has ever seen, with a list of major wins running into the hundreds. To Fresu and Rispoli he was more than that long before they had the unexpected experience of getting to know him at such close quarters.

“In Italy, for the racing people, Frankie is like a god,” Fresu says.

As kids growing up in the Italian horse racing sphere, Fresu and Rispoli idolised Dettori: “It was always, ‘Hey, did you see Frankie had five winners at Royal Ascot, or did you see Frankie win at Sandown?’” Fresu adds.

Neither Fresu nor Rispoli was born when their hero made the move away from his homeland to Newmarket, England to start his apprenticeship under the guidance of another Italian, the trainer Luca Cumani.   

Rispoli was seven years old and Fresu still in pre-school when Dettori on Lammtarra won the first of his six Prix de l’Arc de Triomphes; they were nine years old and five years old when he rode his ‘Magnificent Seven’ at Ascot; their childhood memories are of Frankie dominating in the Godolphin blue.

“When I was a kid Frankie was on top of all the good horses,” Rispoli says. “Kids might have posters of Ronaldo or Messi, but my room was all about Frankie Dettori.”

Rispoli was the first jockey to surpass Frankie’s father Gianfranco Dettori’s record for the most wins in an Italian season; he has Group 1 wins to his name in Japan, Hong Kong, Italy, France and the United States. He moved to Southern California in December 2019 after a few years in Hong Kong.

Fresu has nailed major wins in Italy, Dubai and the United States, and made his way to California late summer of 2023, having grabbed attention with his results in the UAE.

Dettori, of course, was supposed to retire at the end of 2023. That’s what he had announced in December 2022 and all the racing world got ready for his 12-month farewell tour. Then came confirmation of an about turn and news that the retirement was on hold: the Dettoris, Frankie and his wife Catherine, were relocating to California; he would ride the 2023-24 Santa Anita season, December through June.

“I was kind of sad when he announced his retirement,” Fresu says. “I really wanted to ride with him more, so when I moved here and then the news came out that he was coming for the winter, I was really happy.”

That Santa Anita meet was a pretty good spell of success for all three: Dettori took the G1 Santa Anita Handicap; Fresu bagged the Santa Anita Derby; Rispoli had sweet victories in the American Oaks, and on one day in May the Gamely Stakes and the Shoemaker Mile.

The Shoemaker Mile was the cherry on top for Rispoli. Dettori got out in the lead and tried to pinch it on the 11/1 shot Funtastic Again, but Rispoli pegged him back close home on the 11/5 chance Johannes.

“That was the best feeling ever,” Rispoli declares. “I said to Frankie after the race, I won a Grade 1 and I beat you. He doesn’t take that badly because he knows how much I respect him and how much I like him. We respect each other: Frankie knew my parents before he knew me so it’s very different.”

It’s not like the riders hadn’t competed before. Rispoli’s first G1 win in the 2010 Premio Lydia Tesio saw him defeat Dettori into second.

“But that was by three lengths,” he says, and he was young then, too. “This time I made my first Grade 1 double and I beat Frankie by a half-length, he almost stole the race from us on one of the long shots.

“I went head-to-head with him, trust me, I was busy riding my horse, but when I looked at the wire, he was still there, he never gave up.

“I couldn’t believe how much he was screaming coming down the lane. After the wire I said to him you won the Arc, the World Cup and races like this and you’re screaming like that. That’s the mentality you need to have to reach that age at that level.”

Rispoli and Fresu had been in jockeys’ rooms with Dettori before, but this was different. This time they were in his presence for a prolonged period. They all three were together in a foreign land, and that bond of shared culture and language was amplified; that season at Santa Anita meant Rispoli and Fresu sat with, talked with, laughed with, and rode with their boyhood hero race day after race day.

And, for all the joking, leg-pulling and locker stealing, they watched, listened, and learned.

Rispoli relates that when news came through that Dettori would be riding in California, some jockeys complained that they’d lose rides.

“I told them, ‘No, this is the best that could happen!’” he says, with his trademark, all-out Neapolitan passion. “You see, when you compete against the best people, that’s when you pick up your skill, that’s the only way you can get better. He can make you a better rider, so you have to be happy that he decided to come and spend some time at this stage of his career riding in the same races as you.

“To me, it was a dream come true: I thought wow I never got to spend so much time with Frankie. I started working harder, trying to raise up my bar. Frankie is coming: You need to be ready.”

Fresu’s thoughts went along the same track.                            

“If Frankie’s in front, he’s the guy to follow, if he’s behind, he’s the guy that you have to be afraid of because he’s going to hunt you down,” he says.

“You need to ride smarter when you ride against Frankie, you have to be better, you need to prove yourself because you have to be at your best when you’re riding against the best.”

Both riders see Dettori’s demeanour and habits in and around the jockeys’ room as bringing a calming influence. Once a younger livewire himself, he is now the wise head.

“We are two different characters,” Rispoli says. “I am full of fuel, always burning, always on my toes. Frankie comes to me and he says, ‘Umbi, calm down, don’t worry about that, just relax,’ and he’s that person when he talks you listen, you don’t need to answer. And you could have your own opinion, but if a person like Frankie comes to you and offers you advice, you just take it.

“He can criticise himself for a ride, but he’s so good, he forgets about it right away and moves on to the next ride and he’s already put it behind him.

“That’s not easy because maybe you think you could have won and you watch the replay again and again. But he comes to me and he goes, ‘Listen, you can keep watching the replay but the race is always going to be the same, so don’t be upset, move on.’ He’s a good mentor for me.”

A friend, now, too. That’s something Fresu says he is grateful for and he and Rispoli clearly appreciate their good fortune in having the opportunity to have had that evolve naturally over those several months.  

“We are good friends but we are good friends outside the track: once we are on the track we do our best to win,” says Fresu. “When we’re back in the jocks’ room, that’s gone and we don’t think about it and let’s go to the next one.

“Frankie’s a very positive person, he’s the kind of guy that doesn’t like to be around bad vibes, he wants to be positive all the time, always smiling, always cheering up people, it’s nice.”

And that leads to the light-hearted banter, joking and pranks.

“Poor Edwin Maldonado and Kent Desormeaux, they pay a little bit out of it because we come up with jokes and stuff like that,” Rispoli laughs.

“With Antonio and Frankie, we laugh a lot in our Italian corner.”

Rispoli shares an observation. Old ‘Zio’ is always early to the paddock and that provides humour, too: he will leave the room sometimes 16 or 17 minutes ahead of time and they rib him for it. But they do so with an underlying awe and admiration for the old champion’s professionalism and intense focus on the task before him.

“With 19 minutes to go, we’ll joke, ‘You’re late, come on, hurry up!’” he says.

And he sees that Dettori is still hungry to succeed, still relishing the buzz of victory, perhaps also the camaraderie of the jockeys’ room, which he must know will be lost to him when he does finally call time.

With the Santa Anita season almost over, he moved his saddles east to Saratoga at the start of June. After some downtime watching Royal Ascot, he may be back at Del Mar, and perhaps at Santa Anita again in the fall, but Rispoli and Fresu know that his incredible career will end sooner rather than later.

Until then, if he does indeed return, they will savour every moment in his company, continue to learn everything they can from him, and enjoy this unexpected bonus of a friendship with their boyhood hero.

“He was my idol, he still is my idol,” says Fresu, and Rispoli agrees: “He’s been my idol forever.”