While Frankie Dettori may not be the easiest jockey to handle (ask John Gosden) his talent has never been in question and the 51 year old weighing room veteran showed all his undisputed brilliance yet again when taking the £500,000 Sky Bet Ebor Handicap on the four year old gelding Trawlerman on the final day of York’s four day Ebor Festival.
Handed a tricky draw from stall 20 Dettori and the Gosdens (John holds a dual license with son Thady) decided to try the same tactic that had been successful four years earlier when Jim Crowley steered Muntahaa home for Gosden from a similarly wide starting position at the gate.
Breaking prominently from the stalls Dettori stayed on the wide outside while the rest of the field drifted over to the inside rail, bunching as they did so.
Dettori then continued wide for four furlongs, drifting over as the field met the first turn, at which point he was in the lead from Global Storm, also owned, like Trawlerman, by Godolphin.
Turning into the straight the pair still led but it soon looked like the writing was on the wall for Trawlerman as the well backed Irish trained horse Earl Of Tyrone loomed up and went past. The pair were quickly joined by Alfred Boucher, who’d won a handicap at meeting on the Wednesday, Trawlerman the meat in the sandwich between the other two.
Trawlerman quickly found himself in third place but he stuck his head down gamely and as they went inside the final furlong Trawlerman hauled in Earl Of Tyrone. Alfred Boucher had three quarters of a length on him but Dettori and his horse were as determined as each other and they gradually reeled in Alfred Boucher in the final 50 yards, snatching victory by the narrowest of margins right on the line in what was an epic renewal of the famous handicap, Europe’s richest.
John Gosden, who had very publicly split with Dettori after Royal Ascot for what was later described as a ‘sabbatical’, was full of praise for his jockey this time around. “Frankie rode him beautifully. He did look rather solitary out there but it’s not a bad tactic. You’ll see about eight of them doing it next year.”
Dettori, who was riding for his former employer Godolphin as well as cementing his reunion with the Gosdens, admitted he thought that the race was lost at one point. “In the straight I thought I was beat by the Irish horse. Then when the grey horse came he kind of helped me and my horse got competitive again. I thought that I was running out of runway and that I might not get there but he dug deep and stuck his head down.”