The most recognised man on a horse since Clint Eastwood and John Wayne and the only jockey to win all seven races at Ascot, Frankie Dettori tells Shalaka Paradkar why he opened Frankie's, his Italian restaurant in Dubai, and why he would rather not have his kids take up horse racing.
At five feet four and weighing a little over 50 kg, some would say this is dimunitive. But this man is anything but. Frankie Dettori fills the room with his presence. His voice is loud and his personality flamboyant. He is quite like a tightly-coiled spring that can unleash its force any minute ... as ready laughter or some fluent cussing.
Dettori is one of the most celebrated jockeys in the world and the darling of Dubai every time he dons the royal blue silk of Godolphin. A jockey since he was 14, Dettori is hailed by many as the most recognised man on a horse since Clint Eastwood and John Wayne.
Born Lanfranco Oscar Dettori in Italy, Frankie's childhood idol was his father, Gianfranco, also a champion Italian jockey who had won the 2,000 Guineas in 1975 and 1976.
Lanfranco Oscar became Frankie after dropping out of school and moving to the UK, aged 14, when he trained in the Newmarket stables under Luca Cumani.
He became the first teenager since Lester Piggott to ride more than 100 winners in one season (141 winners in 1990). And he is the first and only jockey to win all seven races at Ascot. Frankie's Magnificent Seven at Ascot in September, 1996, may have cost the bookies £30 million (the odds were 25,000 to 1), but it cemented his place in racing history forever.
He went on to ride 233 winners in 1994. This year, he achieved his much-cherished dream of winning the Epsom Derby.
Dubai regards him as the man who rode Dubai Millennium to win in 2000 the world's richest horse race, the Dubai World Cup; he also won the same race riding Moon Ballad (2003) and Electrocutionist (2006) for Godolphin.
Now, the city has another reason to love Frankie: his casual dining Italian restaurant has opened in Dubai Marina. Frankie's Italian Lounge and Grill, in association with three Michelin-starred British superchef Marco Pierre White, will serve up family-friendly meals amidst plush velveteen-upholstered surroundings.
As warm and earthy as the lasagne he plies us with, Frankie declares that food is his passion. He decided to do the Frankie's chain so families with young children could have an enjoyable meal together without busting their budget, he says. With five young children of his own, Frankie knows what he is talking about. "We started with one restaurant in London. We never thought we would have six. Our restaurant here in Dubai Marina just happened in much the same way. Sometimes when you don't plan things, they turn out pretty good."
I
I am going to be 37 this December, and I think I have eight years left before I retire. I haven't decided what I would like to do after retirement: maybe stay on in racing, or get into (the business of running) restaurants.
I am really bad at reading. I don't have much patience. I swear a lot. There are loads of bad things about me. I have five kids, but I have only changed one nappy ever, and I made a mess of it as well.
I usually try to have a good time. I am very good at partying.
I have been blessed with far more good luck than bad. On June 1, 2000, I should have been dead when my plane crashed at Newmarket. But here I am seven years later, talking to you. It was very hard for me, it took me three years to be myself again, to get over the trauma. I lost my pilot. You ask yourself so many questions when you go through something like that – Why did it happen? What if I had died? I wasn't depressed, but I was low. I thanked God and my belief in God that I made it.
When my house was burgled last year, I thanked God my wife and kids were not in the house. The burglars nicked a few trophies, so what? I am not a materialistic person at all. I am glad no one was hurt. People are more important than trophies.
I am a great believer of letting it just happen. You think of something a million times a day and how it is to be done in a million ways, but then, it always turns out in a way you never thought possible. Obviously you got to work hard. A race is like any other job situation in anyone else's life. You prepare, but there's always something unexpected. So I prepare myself for the worst scenario, for losing. That makes it better for me. I try to prepare myself in a negative way, and when it comes to the race day itself, I am always very positive.
ME
Me and my beginnings
I went to public school in Milan. As a child my big hobby was soccer. Even though I was made to ride from the age of 6, I didn't really like it. And it wasn't until I was 8, and my father bought me my own pony that the love for horses started. Her name was Sylvia, and she was a palomino. At 11, in the summer holidays I started going to the stables. That was when the passion for horses started and I wanted to be a jockey.
My parents divorced when I was very young. So my younger sister and I lived for the first six years of my life with my dad, and then with my mum.
My father was very successful: he had a big house and a Mercedes in the driveway. He was my hero, and I wanted to be like him. I wanted to be a jockey for those reasons – because my father was successful and loved by everybody. I wanted to be just like him.
I left school at 14. I didn't like school. Usually you go to school to learn for a job. But I already had the job in my mind and I wanted to start as soon as I could. I do regret dropping out of school a bit, because I am not as clever as some other people. But today I wouldn't be what I am in my sport [if I had not pursued my dream]. I couldn't have done both.
My father sent me to Newmarket, England to learn. I was supposed to be there for a six-month period. But 22 years later, I am still there.
Initially, Newmarket was a huge cultural shock for me. I had learned French in school so I couldn't speak in English. That was the biggest hurdle. It took me about 22 years [to learn the language]... it was more or less like going to the moon for me. Second, they didn't have Italian food. What would be passed off for Italian food would be a badly-cooked plate of pasta.
Olive oil, if at all available, was very hard to get. The range of food was hardly as good as it is now, when the supermarkets stock everything.
And the weather was ...
But I loved the challenge. I got picked on a lot because I am Italian. But I got to stand on my own two feet, and I enjoyed that. It was hard, I had to fight my way through, but I managed. I went to work for the Italian trainer Luca Cumani – he was very strict. Basically, I had to grow up very quickly, all by myself. Another reason I enjoyed myself was that I did not have my mum and dad telling me what to do. At 14, I absolutely misused that freedom. There were the usual teenage things I did ...
September 28, 1996, in Ascot
That was a miracle day. For me it was like a three-day event. There was a first day, middle day and last day. The first day was prior to the big race. Really I wasn't even concentrating on winning all seven races. I was concentrating on the third race, the big race. When it came to the last race, that was the one [in which] I made history. Actually, I didn't have much emotions left after that last race. I couldn't figure out how I had done it all. Curiously enough, I was a little upset. When I came home, I argued with my wife, Catherine, and we went to bed, upset. Funny isn't it?
Like everything in life, you have to work at racing. You got to have talent, but if you work hard you become twice as successful. Talent can only save you a few times.
Me and my family
Catherine and I met when she came to my stable to ride some race horses. She liked eventing and wanted to improve her knowledge of horses. So we went out together, to the cinema, courted for some four years, then got married. We have been married 10 years now, and have five children: Leo, Ella, Mia, Tallulah and Rocco. We wanted three children, but we also wanted another boy. The fourth one was a girl, so we tried and our fifth is our boy Rocco.
I wouldn't want my children to go into racing – it's too dangerous, unpredictable. I may have done really well, but am just scared of failure. And it's just dangerous. If they do want to go into racing, I would encourage them. But if it were left up to me, I would rather they not go into racing. They are around horses all the time, they all have ponies and they all ride.
I am quite a Latin character – I go up and down in my moods, but Catherine is very stable. You need someone stable to make you realise who you are and what you do. Sometimes you can go too far. Fatherhood is an experience that changes all the time. It's still a new thing for me. I am not a hands-on dad, but I am always there for my kids. I play with all their toys. My oldest is 8 now, and youngest is going to be 3.
During racing season, I make it a point to come home every night, no matter how late. The only thing I miss is not having some free time in summer. That's when the kids have their break, but it's also the busiest time of the year for me. Luckily my parents have a nice place in Sardinia, so the children head there and enjoy the beach. Apart from that, I see my children every night and every morning. Yes it's difficult being away from them. But I've got to put bread on the table.
Me and food
Food is my passion, I am Italian, you know. I love cooking, too. I used to watch my mum and dad cook, so I am inspired by them. I find cooking relaxing and enjoyable, I am proud of my culinary skills. I like going to the supermarket and shopping for produce. Some people like cooking and some don't. And I am in the former category. My wife cooks because she has to, but she doesn't really enjoy it.
Catherine is brilliant at feeding the kids the right stuff. She makes sure they eat healthy and they eat lots of vegetables (including broccoli). There's always lots of fruit in the house. If you train the children to eat right from the beginning, it becomes a part of their life.
When you are young you try to find the easy way to lose weight. So I used diuretics and other drugs to shed weight. But you have to have a controlled diet and exercise – it's as simple as that. When you are young, you get lazy, you are not perhaps as mature, or responsible in your choices. As you get older, you learn, you realise you have to be responsible. Today, I train every day. I work out for an hour in the gym every day, I eat sensibly and eat the right food. I try not to snack on rubbish. You can eat, as long as you exercise.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out the fat content of the food we eat. If you eat a lot of bread, that's a lot of carbs that have to burned off. If you understand food, it becomes easy to make good choices. My all-time favourite dish is Melanzane alla Parmigiana: a kind of vegetarian lasagne that has layers of aubergine, tomato and mozzarella. I can't make it, but my mum does it brilliant. I can't even attempt to cook it, because I am sure it will not even be as half as good.
My neighbour, Clive, in the UK was in the food business. One day over a lunch with the kids, we started talking about creating a diet pizza. (We tried, you can't.)That's how we started, as a little bit of fun. Unfortunately we were competing with the big supermarket chains. What can cost you one pound to make, will cost them just about ten pence. They squash you out of business – they create a similar kind of food, only ten times cheaper. My frozen pizza venture is still going on, but not doing so good.
MYSELF
How does it feel to wear the blue silk of Godolphin?
Working at Godolphin is brilliant. I never stop learning from His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai. He is very knowledgeable. He wants to win just as badly as I do. But he gives me the freedom to do what's best, in my good heart and his good faith I do it because we want to win. It doesn't work out all the time. But ... he doesn't get cross or upset with a loss. That puts even more pressure on you to do well.
Just look at Dubai – it tells you the whole story. What more can I say about the man? I've been coming here for 14 years now. He has great vision, an extraordinary talent to bring the best out of people – whether it's me a jockey, or a worker in a building, chief executives and entrepreneurs ... It's an amazing quality, a great gift that he has.
After having won so much, and becoming one of the most famous jockeys in history, do you still have any more ambitions?
My dream is to win everything, again and again. Sometimes you don't really get to enjoy your big wins, because you have to quickly move on to the next race. My dream is that I want everything to stay the way it is. It's easy to step forward, but very hard to step backwards. I've worked so hard to be where I am today, to have the kind of lifestyle I do, I would always want things to remain the way they are. I cannot imagine going back to where I came from, to being the little fly in the basement that I was.
