Frankie: The Autobiography of Frankie Dettori

I was frightened of upsetting my father and the trainer. I was also frightened by all the shouting because I didn’t know how to do the job properly and was terrified I’d make a disastrous mistake on a valuable horse. Some of the lads tried to help with useful hints, but no-one had any confidence in my ability and often I ended up on the same horse twice in the morning because it was the only safe one available. She was so lazy and fat she needed to go out twice to lose a little bit of weight.

Things weren’t much better at home in the evenings. That summer my dad fixed a long set of leather reins onto the metal frame of a well in our garden which was covered in ivy. Night after night he’d show how to hold the reins, the right way to make an arch with them, and then encourage me to change my hands on the reins while holding a whip as though I was riding a finish.

At this stage I could trot and canter—but in racing terms I could hardly read or write, and I couldn’t understand why he was taking such pains to teach me the basics. Why the hell did it matter so much? The lessons continued for half an hour or more on most evenings whenever Dad was home. He would start me off, then mow the lawn or sit down and read a newspaper, keeping an eye on me all the while, shouting instructions and occasional encouragement as I wrestled energetically with the reins.

Within a few months I was changing my reins and passing my whip through from one side to the other without thinking about it, all because of those endless lessons beside our garden well. Once I started race riding it came as second nature to me, and even now I don’t think about switching my whip or changing my hands. I just do it. Sometimes after a race the stewards will ask how many times I used my whip in a finish, and I don’t know the answer until I see the video. That’s because I do these things automatically, without a moment’s thought. Although I’m right-handed, all those sessions beside the well helped me become equally effective with the whip in either hand—which is a big advantage for a jockey. Strangely, though, if you ask any of my rivals, they will probably say I am more vicious with the whip in my left hand.

When you are twelve or thirteen and your dad tells you what to do you don’t have any choice. Everything he said I took as gospel. We had our differences, but to me he will always be a genius for clawing his way to the top of the tree by meeting every challenge with the whole of his being until he dominated flat racing in Italy like no jockey had ever done before or since. When I started in racing I was lost in his shadow, but I was hugely proud that he ended 1983 with a record of 229 winners in Italy—a score that is unlikely ever to be matched.

By the time the summer season was drawing to a close I’d reached an important crossroads in my life. In the late autumn everything closes down in Milan, which can be as cold as New York in the winter. My dad didn’t want me wasting my time trotting around an indoor school for three or four months, learning nothing but bad habits. He then had a flash of inspiration by sending me to work for Tonino Verdicchio at his winter training quarters in Pisa, a three hour drive further south. At the age of thirteen it seemed so far away from home that I felt he was sending me to the moon, but it proved to be the making of me.

Four Growing Up Fast (#ulink_339da524-d78a-5159-a124-5f4613440974)

Tonino Verdicchio was one of my dad’s oldest friends. They got up to all sorts of mischief as apprentices in Rome and kept in close touch when Tonino later became a trainer. He was the man chosen to further my education in and out of the saddle. He and his wife Antonietta had three daughters and throughout that winter they treated me as their own son. I slept on the sofa because they didn’t have a spare bedroom, and worked harder than ever before in my life.

Dad’s instructions to Tonino were short and precise: make sure Lanfranco works hard and pay him peanuts. Tonino fulfilled both to the letter. He met me at Pisa station a few weeks before my fourteenth birthday in December 1984, greeted me warmly, and showed me nothing but kindness during the four months I spent with him. He took me home for a quick change, then immediately put me to work that afternoon at his stables beside the local racecourse.

The yard was built in an L shape. Once he’d armed me with a pitchfork and huge wheelbarrow, Tonino gave me my orders. ‘You start at that end, I’ll start at the other and we’ll meet in the middle’, he suggested. This was an alarming development because I could see at least two dozen horses’ heads peering out at us over the doors, and this madman, who I’d just met, obviously thought I was going to muck out half of them. I started to protest. ‘But Tonino, in other stables where I’ve been you only have to do three horses.’

I’ll never forget his reply: ‘Well, there is no-one else here for the moment so just get on with it.’ I did, too, though I’d finished only two boxes after he’d completed ten. I was doing the job properly just as I had been taught by Sergio Cumani and Aldo Botti. Each of the two boxes was immaculate by the time I closed the doors. When Tonino came to inspect my efforts he was clearly unhappy at what he discovered. ‘Don’t waste so much straw. Just chuck out the worst, put the rest back and freshen it all up’, he explained. It was an early education into the harsh economics of racing for most trainers who have to balance the books. Tonino then helped me finish the remaining boxes before taking me back home for supper with his family.

The next morning I was up early as usual dressed in my smart jodhpurs and shiny boots—which proved to be a bit over the top since all the lads at the others yards in Pisa wore jeans and trainers. On the drive to the stables Tonino stopped to collect a double espresso, poured it into an empty bottle, then knocked on the window of the lads’ hostel beside the yard. A large hand emerged from the window and grasped the coffee. Moments later a dishevelled, unshaven, fat guy came stumbling out of the hostel to join us, the life-restoring coffee clutched in his hand. This turned out to be Tonino’s head lad Chippolo.

So now we had three to share the workload—and what a workload! We mucked out 25 horses between us and each rode eight of them at exercise. Naturally I fell off a couple of times that first morning and by the time we’d finished I was close to collapsing. The place seemed more like a circus than a well-run racing stable. How on earth was I going to survive?

My early attempts in the saddle on Tonino’s horses were embarrassing. Because I still had the puppy fat of a schoolboy my body wasn’t prepared for the shock of riding so many horses each morning. Some ran off with me, others dropped me, and one or two could barely be bothered to put one leg in front of the other as they hacked half-heartedly down to the start of the area where they used to work round a six furlong sand track. Then when we turned round ready to canter back they were off like Spitfires.

Being run away with by a big, hard-pulling racehorse is not for faint hearts and it happened to me most mornings. The harder I tried to hold them by pulling on the reins the faster they galloped. Tonino bollocked me all the time, but always with a smile on his face.

One day I completed seven laps of the circuit on a horrible old gelding which always took liberties with me. The further we went the weaker I became until my arms gave out. I was screaming at Tonino to help me, and eventually he did by placing the horse that he was riding firmly in our path just as we were in danger of setting out on our eighth lap. The old thief stopped in two strides and sent me flying over his head.

Another time at the end of the morning I was on a difficult horse which launched me into orbit as he prepared to charge up the gallop. I managed to cling onto the reins but I was still so short at that stage that I couldn’t jump back into the saddle without help. So Tonino stepped off the sprinter he was riding, came to my assistance and, in trying to give me a leg up, sent me tumbling straight over the other side onto the ground again. In the mayhem that followed both horses broke loose and we were left to walk home.

However many times I hit the ground I always bounced back for more. As my strength developed and my muscles firmed up I began to grow in confidence—to such an extent that within six weeks I was riding work on his better horses alongside decent jockeys. In the beginning I was so exhausted after riding eight horses each morning that I’d fall asleep all afternoon back at Tonino’s house before returning with him later for evening stables. After a few weeks he decided he didn’t need me back at the yard at the end of the day. Then I had much more time to myself and would play video games and wander around the town with his girls and their friends once they had finished at school. On Sundays we never missed the local disco.

Suddenly I was growing up fast. I was a typical young teenager, desperate to be cool and trendy, though that’s not so easy when you are exceptionally small. Tonino’s girls did their best to keep me in my place by giving me a hard time. Life was beautiful without the strict regime of discipline I had grown up with at home. How I welcomed my new freedom! I loved every minute of my stay with Tonino, Antonietta and the girls. They introduced me to the sort of normal family life I had never experienced before. That was the point where I began to come out of my shell.

It helped that I was starting to believe for the first time: I could become a jockey. I felt by then that, if necessary, I could ride a horse the wrong way round standing on its quarters. Looking back now, I realise I was pretty advanced for my age after sitting on so many horses every day all through the winter. When work was over I’d be arguing and fighting with Tonino’s girls, enjoying ourselves in the way that youngsters do.

I wished my stay would never end but, late in March, after four months my dad returned from a riding tour of Australia and South Africa and soon I was on the move again. He drove down to collect me from Pisa, then on the return journey to Milan started to outline his grand plan for my future. It was not so much a discussion, more a lecture. First he wanted to send me away to England for six months. Then it was on to France for a further six months. After that he would let me come home to Italy in midsummer. It was a crucial timescale because in those days apprentices in Italy could starting riding in races once they were fifteen and a half and I would reach that milestone in mid June, 1986.

When I had the chance to speak I made it clear that the last place I wanted to be was England. I pointed out that I’d been hopeless at English at school and much preferred to continue my racing education in my own country. But as usual in these matters my thoughts didn’t count. My dad’s mind was made up and he was keener than ever to send me to England once he took me to ride out with him the next morning at Aldo Botti’s yard in Milan.

Before he went away at the start of the winter, my riding had been a disappointment to him. Now he was visibly shocked at how swiftly I had progressed. Within days Aldo was happy to let me lead important work on top-class horses due to run in the Italian Classics. It was fast work too, upsides some of the best jockeys in Italy. I was riding with my stirrups as short as ever, too short really. I listened to the instructions and carried them out to the letter. I could see for the first time that my dad was proud of his son, and that heightened his ambition for me. So England it would be, to join Luca Cumani, the son of Sergio—but not before a setback that could have ended my career before it ever started.

Once I was back at home in Milan I swapped my bicycle for a little moped to speed up my daily journey from home to Aldo Botti’s yard where I was working until my departure for England. To beat the boredom of my daily run of just over a mile I used to clock myself, then try to beat my own record by missing out a junction or a couple of traffic lights.

I was made to buy a large crash helmet, but appearances already mattered to me and I didn’t feel very cool with my head encased in something that resembled a big mushroom. Nor was it compulsory to wear one, so it used to hang idly from a hook on the scooter. Only grown-ups wore helmets then—all the kids I knew rode their scooters bare-headed.

So off I raced to work one morning early in April, intent on setting a new personal speed record. I was making good time too, as I approached a junction leading to the stables. One fork was for cars, the other was for horses and had sand on top of the tarmac. To shorten the route I turned onto the road reserved for horses, skidded on the sand, lost control and found myself hurtling along the ground towards a large lamppost. I put out my right arm to save myself but careered with sickening force into the post.

As I lay in a heap, groaning with pain, I knew I’d hurt myself badly. My right elbow was in bits and my head hurt like hell. Soon an ambulance arrived and I was carted off to hospital. X-rays confirmed that I had shattered my elbow into over twenty pieces. My dad then arrived and was immediately furious with me for what I had done. Instead of giving sympathy when I needed it most, he and Christine tore into me so heavily that the people sitting next door were shocked.

Despite outward appearances, I knew that my parents were really concerned for me. Dad swiftly arranged for me to be moved to a private hospital where surgeons operated using screws and pins to repair the damage. A few days later, while I was still in hospital, Dad—riding a horse called Wild Dancer—was just pipped by Irish jockey Michael Kinane on Again Tomorrow in a tight finish to the Italian 2,000 Guineas. He blamed himself for riding a bad race because he was still so upset about my injuries—which, at that stage, he feared could prevent me fulfilling his dreams for me to become a jockey.

The damage took time to heal, and when the plaster was taken off I promptly fainted! I then discovered to my horror that I could barely extend my elbow 45 degrees. We were all concerned at first, even though we were told that it would eventually be as good as before with the help of regular physiotherapy. So my routine for the next month was to catch a bus to the nearest swimming pool, where I swam for an hour before returning home to carry out all the chores I’d always avoided in the past. In the afternoons it was back to the pool for more swimming.

Each day I could extend my arm a little further but progress was painfully slow. My dad became increasingly impatient as the days passed and I was still no nearer leaving for England. Eventually he put his foot down and decided on a novel way of sorting out the elbow once and for all. He took me with him to Aldo Botti’s yard and loaded me aboard an old sprinter called Fire Thatch who had once been trained by Henry Cecil in England.

By this stage of his career Fire Thatch was the quietest animal in Botti’s stable, a saint of a horse but one who still had his moments. As I hadn’t ridden for almost three months I was a bit apprehensive, mostly because I knew my arm still wasn’t right. I betrayed my nerves by gripping the reins much tighter than usual as we turned to set off on what should have been a routine canter. Fire Thatch immediately grabbed hold of the bit and set off like a rocket.

A second earlier my arm wouldn’t extend fully. Now, in one moment of extreme pain, both my arms were straight out in front of me as I tried in vain to prevent Fire Thatch from running away with me. We covered five furlongs flat out and every stride was agony for me before he eased to a halt at the end of the gallop. In little more than a minute the horse had accomplished what the doctors and physios couldn’t achieve in eleven weeks. The pain continued for a while as I returned to riding out full-time again for Botti, though luckily there was no lasting damage after this unconventional comeback. My elbow has been fine for years, but still I can’t stretch my right arm quite as far as it is supposed to go.

Once he knew my recovery was complete, Dad was anxious to send me on my way to England. He’d already introduced me briefly at the races to Luca Cumani—who had been an outstanding amateur rider before becoming Henry Cecil’s assistant. Later Luca had set up on his own as a trainer at Newmarket.

I flew from Milan on 10 July 1985 with a bucketful of dreams, one million lira (£366) in my pocket, and an identification tag around my neck so that someone could collect me after we landed at Luton. As the plane clawed its way into the sky I felt as if I was on Mission Apollo, heading for the stars. My life was changing forever and I had no control over it. I was met at Luton by Luca’s chauffeur David, who did his best to make me welcome even though he couldn’t speak a word of Italian.

As we listened on the car radio to the July race meeting at Newmarket, I heard the name of a horse named Lanfranco being called in commentary in the big race of the day. Suddenly I didn’t feel quite so far from home.

Five I Used to Cry Myself to Sleep (#ulink_fd6413fd-7936-55d4-905f-47f925352fde)

Our first stop in Newmarket was the house in the Bury Road which was to be my home for a few short, increasingly unhappy weeks. When we knocked on the front door at around four in the afternoon there was no reply. Since David was keen to take me to Luca Cumani’s yard, I left my big bag outside the back door, at his suggestion, convinced that I’d never see it again. At home in Milan I was used to kids trying to rob you as you walked along the street. Leaving all my precious possessions outside the house seemed to be asking for trouble.

Then we headed for the office at Luca’s yard nearby. He was not around, but his secretary took me to the bottom yard where I met his veteran head lad Arthur Taylor—who could speak some Italian because he fought there in the war as a sergeant in the Cavalry regiment and (I learned much later) had been involved in the battle for Montecassino at the same time as my grandfather Mario.

Arthur handed me a dandy brush and towel, led me to the fillies’ barn and put me to work. I was still wearing my suit, so I took off my jacket, hung it up, unbuttoned my shirt and started dressing the filly over as best I could. Half an hour later Luca appeared at the door of the box, said a brief buona sera!, told me to be in the yard by six the next morning, then went on his way round the yard at evening stables.

It had been a long day and I was already beginning to feel homesick as I was delivered back to my digs—and found to my surprise that my bag was still there. The whole family was there to meet me, including the father who was so massive he resembled the famous old wrestler ‘Big Daddy’. I was shown to my room upstairs under the corner of the roof next to the main road. In the weeks that followed it felt more like a prison than a refuge.

It was little bigger than a broom cupboard with just enough space for a small bed, a sink and a cupboard. Beside the basin was a jug of orange squash. I poured myself a glass, drank deeply then spat it out in disgust. I’d never encountered neat orange squash before and couldn’t imagine how anyone would want to drink it. In Italy I was used to fresh orange juice. It was one of many culture shocks I experienced in the next few days.

My first evening meal in England was another disaster. In an attempt to make me feel at home they laid on a plate of ravioli, but this was far from the delicious treat which I was used to enjoying back in Italy. This ravioli came instead from a Heinz tin! Everyone else tucked in but I thought it smelled awful—and when I tried a spoonful it was awful. The landlord was obviously irritated by my reaction so I struggled through a few more mouthfuls to keep the peace.

The family’s three children sitting round the table were a bit younger than me and we were also joined by several other lads who lived in the back of the house. Conversation was impossible because I didn’t speak any English. The only word I understood was Swinburn. Apparently my new landlord was a fanatical fan of trainer Michael Stoute who employed Walter Swinburn as his stable jockey. Aware that I was working for Luca Cumani he banged on endlessly about Stoute, Swinburn and Shergar, but most of it went straight over my head. I was utterly miserable as I trooped upstairs to bed.

Riding out with the Cumani team the next morning made me feel a little better, though I was overwhelmed by the size of the place and the sheer number of horses we could see on Newmarket heath. After the delights of Milan and Pisa, Newmarket truly did seem like the headquarters of racing, with almost sixty trainers squeezed into the town. Luca trained a string of just over one hundred horses that season, a total that would almost double in the years ahead. Half of them were in the main yard beside the house, with the rest in the bottom yard which was where I started. I’d never been involved with such a huge racing set-up before, and it was quickly made clear to me that the guv’nor, as everyone called him, expected things to be done properly. All the lads seemed in awe of him as he moved around the yard like a Roman emperor.

At lunchtime that first day I used some of the cash my dad had given me to buy a bicycle for £80. That evening I rode it proudly to work, but as the week went on I felt more and more isolated. At fourteen I was several years younger than any of the other lads and nobody much seemed to want to talk to me—except a nice old boy called George Dunwoody who’d trained and ridden horses in Northern Ireland for many years. More recently he’d looked after a Classic horse—the previous year’s St Leger winner Commanche Run.

In a way we were the ‘odd couple’ thrown together by fate, the young Italian nuisance at the start of his career and the veteran stableman who was helping out around the yard at the other end of the rainbow. George always had time for me and tried to explain things as best he could. Later, as my English improved, he told me that his son Richard was making his name as a jockey over fences. George rather took me under his wing and we would sit outside on a couple of bales of straw most mornings that summer, eating breakfast together.

Others weren’t too friendly at first. Some picked on me, mimicking my voice, generally giving me a tough time and giving me a clip around the ear whenever they felt I deserved it. No wonder I was homesick! If there were dirty jobs to be done you can be sure that L. Dettori was the one told to do them. That’s the way it has always been in racing: the youngest and weakest learn the hard way. It’s the law of the jungle. As they grow stronger they in turn make life difficult for the latest newcomers.

Luca is on record as saying I was pretty wild when I arrived from Italy, badly in need of a firm hand to straighten me out, but that isn’t how I remember it. Far from it. It might have been the case four years later, but until I found my feet I was naive and so quiet you wouldn’t believe it. For the first six months I was probably the best apprentice in the yard, keen as mustard. I was up so early I arrived at the yard before the head lad so I was usually the one who opened up the tack room. Realising that I was a slow worker, I wanted to make sure my horses looked immaculate.

I was also incredibly lonely in those early days and often used to cry myself to sleep. At the beginning it was almost a game with Luca Cumani. I had agreed to go to him without supposing for a minute that I’d stay very long. I felt I only ended up in England because football dominates every other sport in Italy.

For the first six months it was work, to bed, work, to bed again…nothing else. The worst nights were Mondays. Then my dad would ring from Italy on the dot of seven, ask how I was getting on, and encourage me as best he could by saying that, if I stayed at Luca’s, I too could one day have a big car and fly in private planes like famous jockeys such as Lester Piggott and Pat Eddery. It was his way of brainwashing me. He also made it clear that it was a hard and tiring job, and at times a thankless one. I would need to make enormous sacrifices if I wanted to be a jockey.