Horse racing, the legendary Frankie Dettori retires: “2023 will be my last year”

The farewell of a legend. Lanfranco ‘Frankie’ Dettori has announced that 2023 will be its last season. The 52-year-old horse rider Italian-English, one of the best known figures in the world of gallop, he announced it to the ITV broadcaster. “Next year – said Dettori – will be my last professional year as a jockey. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while. My heart wants to keep pedaling but I have to use my brain. I want to stop at the top. It was difficult, but I think the time is right.”

The King of Ascot

Dettori has won the most famous races on the horse racing circuit, reaching 3,300 victories; in 2021 he became the second jockey to achieve his 50th win in the British Champions Series. His first British win came at Goodwood in 1987, and in 1990 he became the first teenager to score a hundred first places in a single season since Lester Piggott. His first international success comes in 1994; two years later at Ascot he won all seven races scheduled for the Royal Ascot in a single day, a record that has remained unbeaten. In 2000 he survived a plane crash on his way to Goodwood from Newmarket, suffering a broken ankle and injured thumb. The pilot of the aircraft, a piper, died in the accident. His career was only interrupted in 2012 by a six-month disqualification for testing positive for cocaine, when he was in France for a race.