Dettori earns true Esteem

Gianfranco Dettori, Italy's former champion jockey, was in Gran Canaria on Saturday evening when he decided to check how his son had fared at Ascot. Frankie Dettori's stepmother shouted from the kitchen for news, but the only noise was Dettori Snr's hand banging on the side of the television set. The screen seemed to be suggesting that their boy had won all seven races at one of Britain's most competitive meetings of the year. "He just froze in front of the TV ," Frankie said yesterday. "He said the Teletext was not working any more.''

Redundancy, however, may be confined to Britain's small bookmakers after Dettori's unique 25,095-1 seven-timer in Berkshire. No jockey has ever ridden all seven winners at a meeting and the only men to have gone through the card on six races are Gordon Richards in 1933 and Alec Russell 39 years ago.

But then few jockeys have had the impact of Frankie Dettori. It was only six years ago that the Milanese-born rider rode his first Group One winner, coincidentally also at Ascot's Festival of British Racing. The teenage Dettori had arrived at the Newmarket yard of his countryman Luca Cumani on two battered wheels (of his scooter) speaking even fewer words of English.

Dettori though was fluent with horses and became one of the very few champion apprentices to go on to make a similar impact in the senior ranks. At 25 he has already won the jockeys' championship twice, and those that have known him since boyhood insist success has done nothing to soil his character. There is certainly something glacier fresh about Dettori's approach to the turf, his extravagant yet genuine excitement of performing at the highest level.

Dettori smiled permanently as the roll built up on Saturday, though like those who had chosen to list his mounts on a betting slip, he started getting a little woozy inside as the afternoon progressed. "From the fourth to the seventh race I can't remember anything," he said yesterday. "I was being dragged left, right and centre and it was just staggering. I didn't know where I was or what I was riding, but kept on winning. I beat 98 horses and I'm still in shock.

"The most enjoyable time I had was when I was cantering down to post for the last race on Fujiyama Crest and the whole of the 20,000 people in the stands stood up and clapped me. The last furlong of that race was like a mile and when we crossed the line I let out a big scream and lost my voice.

"But it didn't really sink in until this morning, when I went to the paper shop. I cleaned them out.''

Dettori's other port of call was the Newmarket Catholic Church where he is to marry next winter. There may be quite a crowd for him to push through that day, but the Italian is getting used to company.

The throng is never far from Dettori these days, and Ascot cannot have produced a less stuffy atmosphere than it did this weekend. Late afternoon is normally the time spectators dribble out of the racecourse to beat the traffic. On Saturday the flow was reversed. After Dettori had completed his set the creeping crowd was allowed into the holy of holies, the winners' enclosure, to receive a lasting memory of the day, the spray from the jockey's champagne bottle.

In all of this it was easy to forget that Ascot had been the scene of two heroic performances, and that Mark Of Esteem's success earlier in the day in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes had been recognised as the best in Britain for many years.

In the parade ring before the race it had been like the Tiller girls coming on stage as each equine performer seemed to be an identical figure, chestnut with splashes of white. Mark Of Esteem, a dark bay, was outstanding in this company (as he proved in the race itself), transferring his weight quickly from hoof to hoof as the time for competition neared.

The movement was forward and fast in the latter stages of the race itself as Dettori felt an energy surge beneath him he had not encountered before. "When I asked him the question at the furlong pole he just took off," the rider said. "He has an amazing turn of foot and is undoubtedly the best miler I have ridden.''

A provisional assessment of the race makes Mark Of Esteem the best horse to run in Europe since 1992. According to the British Horseracing Board handicapper, the colt ran to a mark of 134, the highest figure since St Jovite won the Irish Derby and King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes to earn a station of 135. Mark Of Esteem now carries the previously poisonous distinction of being Britain's greatest hope for the Breeders' Cup series, in which he will contest the Mile in Toronto next month.

As the colt recovered yesterday Dettori was back on duty at Ascot for what must have appeared close to a replica of 24 hours earlier. The Italian was again at the centre of human clusters, microphones were pushed under his nose and whenever he looked down someone was forcing a pen into his hand. The only element that was missing was winners. Six races passed without reward until Altamura emerged from the gloom and confetti of autumn leaves to collect the Harvest Stakes.

Again an unusual proportion of the crowd stayed behind, producing a blend of laughter and applause as Dettori raised his hand in mock triumph. It was his only counterfeit moment of the weekend.

Yesterday's results, page 19