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Frankie Dettori rides 3,000th British winner
3,000th winner came on Predilection at Newmarket.
Won Epsom Derby and Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe
He described it as “a mundane Friday night,” but jockey Frankie Dettori will always remember August 12 – the day he claimed his 3,000th British winner as he piloted Predilection to victory at Newmarket.
The 45-year-old Dettori celebrated his success by reprising his trademark flying dismount after entering the winner’s enclosure.
“I didn’t ride all week purposefully because Newmarket is where I’m from,” the jockey told the British Horseracing Authority website.
“I’m very pleased for it to have happened at Newmarket because this is where I landed 30 years ago. Who ever thought 30 years later I would have ridden all of those winners?
“It’s not a big meeting, it’s not a Royal Ascot – it’s a mundane Friday night with 20,000 people.”
Dettori has spent almost three decades in the winner’s circle – he won his first race aged 16 in Turin, Italy and cemented his name in racing folklore a decade later by riding all seven winners at Ascot’s British Champions’ Day in 1996.
A four-time winner of Prix de L’Arc de Triomphe and a double Epsom Derby champion, Detorri also last year won the World’s Best Jockey award for 2015.
Over the last four years his career has undergone a remarkable revival after he was handed a six-month worldwide ban from racing following a failed drugs test while riding at Longchamp, in Paris, in September 2012.
Read: Dettori’s remorse about drug ban
For more horse racing news, visit CNN’s Winning Post page
Let go by Godolphin, Dettori was then signed as a retained rider by Al Shaqab Racing and in partnership with trainer John Gosden slowly began to rebuild his career.
“He’s been instrumental,’ said Detorri of Godsen. “I started with him 20 years ago and he picked me back up when I was down.”
Reflecting further on his landmark win, he added: “It’s special. I’m very emotional because my family are here as well. I got a tremendous cheer, it was brilliant. I’m relieved and very humble.”
