Dettori bids farewell to Dubai in best possible way

To an ovation that could probably be heard in nearby Qatar, Frankie Dettori bid farewell to his “second home” Dubai by winning on Lord North at Meydan racecourse last Saturday.

“It’s my last year and Dubai has been my second home for so many years. I’m not emotional, actually, but I’m so, so chuffed [with the win]” Dettori told reporters.

No-one believes his “non emotional” statement. The legendary Italian-born rider had to have a lump in his throat as he soaked up the applause on the way to the winner’s enclosure on Lord North. Of course, he performed his flying dismount to the delight of the crowd.

“It’s brilliant — I came to the meeting today thinking I’d got four or five decent rides, but it didn’t work out until Lord North,” said Dettori.

On the first leg of his global retirement tour, Dettori was hoping for a big final payday by winning the $12m Dubai World Cup on Bob Baffert’s runner, Country Grammar. However, the American horse ran a flat race and finished seventh.

Lord North came to the rescue winning the Dubai Turf for a third year running and trainer John Gosden was understandably delighted with the win.

“Like Stradivarius, Lord North is a real favourite in the yard because he’s such a wonderful character of a horse and he’s very brave as he’s had a lot of problems to deal with,” said Gosden.

While World Cup night belonged to Japan, another European trainer, Aidan O’Brien, didn’t leave empty-handed with his stayer, Broome, winning the Dubai Gold Cup under a brilliant ride from Ryan Moore.

Broome beat the well-fancied favourite Siskany by a neck to record his first win since the Hardwicke Stakes at Royal Ascot last year.

“We’re very happy with the win and obviously he’s going to go the Cup route. We'll be looking at all those races on the way down to running in the Melbourne Cup,” said O’Brien.

“He won’t have to run in the two Irish trials — he can go straight to Ascot and after that do Goodwood and all those types of races,” added O'Brien.

“He’s seven now and he’s the perfect age to be doing all those races, travelling as an older horse.

“He’s an amazing horse — he was very genuine at Meydan. Looking at him, you’d say we should have stepped him up in trip a lot earlier.”

A clash between Broome and stablemate Kyprios, unbeaten in six starts in 2022, in the Ascot Gold Cup looks unlikely with Timeform reporting at the weekend that the horse had had a setback which could keep him sidelined until the autumn.

“He got a  bit of a joint about a month ago and we just need that to settle down. If it does, we’ll go to Ascot, if it doesn’t we’ll have him for the autumn. We won’t rush him, we'll take our time and see where we go,” said O’Brien.