Frankie Dettori walked into a bar … but don’t expect a punchline, because nobody paid any attention. “I went to a restaurant the other day with my wife,” he says, “and I went to buy a drink at the bar and I found myself looking round to see if people were looking at me. But I realised that no one knew who I was, and I thought, ‘this is great!’”
The last significant sporting celebrity from Britain to divert his career path towards Los Angeles would have struggled to maintain such a low profile. Posh and Becks went straight into the upper reaches of the Hollywood A-list. Tom Cruise, Eva Longoria and Arnie were among the stars in attendance when David Beckham made his debut for LA Galaxy.
It registered as a 9.5, at least, on the celebrity earthquake scale, while Dettori’s recent announcement that he will postpone his much trailed retirement and move to ride full-time in California from December has, so far at least, barely moved the needle at all. For much of 2023, of course, it seemed that this weekend’s Breeders’ Cup meeting at Santa Anita, where he rode with considerable success in the early months of 2023, would be the final full stop at the end of a storied career.
Instead, it will now mark the start of an entirely new chapter – or perhaps the next-chapter-but-one, if a rumoured detour to the Australian jungle later this month comes to pass.
Among trainers and jockeys on the California circuit, there is a widespread sense that it is the right move, at the right time, for Dettori and Santa Anita.
“Watching him when he was here a few months back, he was having such a wonderful time,” Mike Smith, the most successful Breeders’ Cup jockey of all time and still an active rider at 58, says. “So before he calls it quits, why not come and hang out in America, maybe for a meet or two, or however long he feels. He’s riding as well, if not better than ever.
“He is who he is, a very lovable man and a good person, and fun to have around in the jocks’ room. It’s great when you’ve got that kind of competition, and it will teach all those young guys to step their game up. It certainly makes me do it, and it’s fun to ride with him.”
Dettori finished close to the top of the jockeys’ rankings when he rode at Santa Anita’s winter/spring meeting in the early months of the year, and picked up rides from many of Santa Anita’s most successful trainers, including Bob Baffert, Phil D’Amato and John Sadler, most familiar to European fans for training Flightline, last year’s Breeders’ Cup Classic winner.
“When he came in, we were thinking, maybe this is the end, this is just a handshake-and-hang-out kind of a deal,” Sadler says. “But once he got to riding here last year, everybody started to get it.
“This [the clear blue sky and 25C heat] is part of it, right here. It will be like this in January some days. He just really seemed to be enjoying it, I put him on some horses, and he rode them terrific. He didn’t ride old. He rode like he was really engaged and into it [and] he’ll be received even better the second year because he did so well last year.”
Beckham’s relocation a decade-and-a-half ago undoubtedly helped to raise the profile of Major League Soccer, in a country where the NFL and NBA have an ever increasing majority share of the sporting public’s attention. Whether Dettori’s move will similarly boost the popularity of racing in southern California, in a sprawling metropolis where only a small fraction of the population are even aware of Santa Anita’s existence, remains to be seen.
But it is the earnest hope of Dettori’s longtime friend, Aidan Butler, who is credited with turning Santa Anita’s fortunes around since the traumatic spring of 2019 when 30 horses died at the track while racing or training in the first six months of the year. Butler, who was born in the Midlands and grew up racing at tracks like Uttoxeter and Warwick, bought a ticket to Dettori’s “retirement” party last month despite sensing that he was having second thoughts about quitting the saddle. He also played a persuasive role in Dettori’s busman’s holiday last winter, and sees his relocation as an exceptional PR opportunity for US racing in general and Santa Anita in particular.
“I got an inkling a couple of months before the announcement that he wasn’t done,” Butler says. “He just wasn’t ready to stop and it’s a different format out here. He lives close to the track, he’ll ride three, maybe four days a week, he’s not travelling, the sun is shining. But he’s not only one of the world’s best jockeys and a lovely guy. His personality is something that we don’t have much of in America. In England, he’s a household name, but there aren’t as many household names over here as there are over there.
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“So having someone with his personality out there, hooting and hollering and doing his dismounts, I think it’s good for the whole ecosystem. The younger guys and everybody, even if they think he’s a little over the top, they have some banter with him and it’s just good sport, it really is.”
The main revenue stream for Santa Anita, and US racing in general, remains off-track wagering, not gate receipts. “I think it’s kind of sad,” Sadler says, “but we’re not where we were, and football and basketball are the real cornerstones [of US sport]. But racing in California continues to handle [generate betting turnover] well, and our signal sells well in other markets back east.”
“He won’t see the same crowds [at most meetings] as he does in England, but he will on the big days, for the Derby [in early April], the Handicap [in March] and Opening Day on 26 December is huge.”
No current jockey feeds off the fervour and support of a big crowd like Dettori, and the extent to which the big days make up for afternoons when the stands are all but empty could be a factor in deciding how long his stay in SoCal continues.
From Butler’s point of view, however, it cannot start soon enough, and the track will do all it can to attract fans to see Santa Anita’s new star attraction in the flesh. “Historically, racing was the biggest show in town,” he says. “But there’s a lot of things vying for the dollar now, and from an entertainment standpoint, you have to make sure that everything you do is as good as you can do it.
“The best thing for racing is getting people here, to see it and feel the energy, and see the care and attention we put into the place. “That’s how you fall in love with it. It’s difficult to fall in love with racing just on TV.”