Frankie Dettori is regarded as one of hje greatest jockeys of his generation but despite 14 attempts he is yet to win the Derby. Chief Sports Writer Scott Wilson reports on today's 15th attempt which surely presents Dettori's best chance yet.
TO be described as a true sporting great, you have to win the greatest events going. So just as it seems incredible that Tony McCoy has never won a Grand National, so it is difficult to believe that Frankie Dettori is yet to win a Derby.
It is impossible to contest that McCoy and Dettori are the foremost jockeys of their generation, and few would argue about their place in a pantheon of racing greats that includes the likes of John Francombe, Gordon Richards and Lester Piggott. But neither can claim to be the complete article until they fill the one glaring gap at the heart of their respective CVs.
McCoy can at least call upon the hurly-burly nature of the Grand National as a mitigating factor. The race is nowhere near as much of a lottery as it used to be, but the presence of 39 rivals, the challenge of taking on 30 uncompromising obstacles and the fact that even the favourite is often sent off at odds of 8-1 or upwards means that a Grand National victory is anything but a given for even the most talented of National Huntsmen.
Dettori, on the other hand, has no such excuses. The Derby might be the ultimate mile-and-a-half test for colts in Europe, but there should be little that stands in the way of the leading horse and the leading jockey cementing their status. As stable jockey to Sheikh Mohammed's formidable Godolphin operation, not to mention a previous spell as retained rider for Epsom specialist Luca Cumani, Dettori has hardly been starved of fancied rides. Yet a second-placed finish aboard Tamure in 1995 remains the closest he has come to claiming the classic. Or at least it has until today.
When Dettori springs out of the stalls aboard Authorized this afternoon, he will be riding a horse that most observers feel only has to turn up at Epsom to claim the prize.
It is a golden opportunity for racing's golden boy, but by 4.25pm it could also have turned into something of a poisoned chalice. Win, and the Italian's legacy will be confirmed. Lose, though, and a doubt that continues to nag at him will threaten to consume him forever.
"I've won Derbys from Macau to Hamburg but the one I crave the most keeps passing me by and it is beginning to irritate me," said Dettori, who is a multiple winner of each of the other English classics.
"I want it for so many reasons, not just to get the monkey off my back. There are plenty of races around the world that are more valuable than the Vodafone Derby, but they aren't at Epsom and they don't provide that special atmosphere. I appreciate all the tradition that goes with the race.
"Although Sir Gordon Richards was champion jockey 26 times it worries me that he didn't achieve his great ambition at Epsom until the twenty-eighth attempt. He was 49 by then. I'll be in trouble if I have to wait that long because I'm not planning to be riding at that age."
Dettori has achieved every other ambition going since first arriving on English shores at the age of 13.
A record of more than 150 Group One victories and more than 2,000 UK career wins elevates him to the ranks of the all-time greats, while his seven successes in a day at Royal Ascot are unlikely to be repeated.
While his Sicilian father, Gianfranco, was a champion jockey in Italy, Lanfranco's celebrity has extended way beyond the horse racing sphere.
Appearances on the likes of 'A Question Of Sport' and 'Parkinson' have won him wider appeal, as underlined by his third-place finish in 1996's BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award, but while the more conservative sections of the racing world have bridled at his lavish lifestyle, it would be wrong to characterise Dettori as anything other than a fully-focused winning machine.
"What continues to drive me is the certainty that there is nothing that I'd rather be doing than riding horses, above all in the big races," he said. "It started out as just a job but it has moved far beyond that.
"I do it because I love the buzz and the pressure of being a jockey. I don't need the money any more and, yes, I'd probably do it for nothing. I know I'll never get the same highs from doing anything else."
Not, though, that there haven't been lows along the way as well. An errant youth eventually culminated in a falling-out with Cumani that cost him his job, and his career threatened to nose-dive when he received a police caution for possessing cocaine in 1993.
On the track, he was widely criticised for losing at the Breeders Cup in 1998 aboard Swain - an impetuous ride that has come to be recognised as the worst of Dettori's career - but even that pales into insignificance compared to the incident that almost robbed the 36-year-old of his life two years later.
In summer 2000, Dettori was flying in a small Seneca aircraft as it suffered an engine fire on its take-off from Newmarket racecourse. The pilot, Patrick Mackey, died in the subsequent crash-landing, but a fortunate Dettori escaped with nothing worse than a broken leg.
"I remember thinking, 'Why go on as a jockey'," he explained in his recent autobiography, 'Frankie'. "I had a lovely wife and a bouncy little son. There was so much more to life than racing. Why not jump off the treadmill and take things easy for a change?
"Then I began to realise that God had saved me. I was going to die and he spared me. Why? Obviously it wasn't my time. And because my life almost ended far too soon, I decided there and then that I was going to make the most of it the second time around."
Fate is a topical subject this afternoon as, by rights, Dettori should not even be riding Authorized.
As the stable jockey of Godolphin, he should be on board Eastern Anthem, the Dubai-based operation's only runner in the race.
But after a Dettori-inspired Authorized demolished a high-class field to win last month's Dante Stakes at York, Sheikh Mohammed gave his leading light the go-ahead to partner Peter Chapple-Hyam's colt at Epsom.
As a result, Authorized will start as the race's first odds-on favourite since Entrepreneur in 1997, and Dettori will never have a better chance of breaking his Derby duck.
"I think there have been four odds-on shots in the last 50 years, so to have a horse like him is very special," he said. "I have ridden some great horses in the Derby, but they have all had question marks. Dubai Millennium was a doubtful stayer and Cape Verdi was a filly against the colts.
"Authorized seems the best ride I have had, and the Dante looked like the best trial. He won that as well as any horse we have seen in the past, but he still has to do the business at Epsom, and that's never a given."
If Dettori is to be remembered as a great, though, today is surely going to be the day when his greatness becomes unquestionable.
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