Dettori bids farewell after masterful ride and cheers from York crowd

York — Non-Yorkshiremen rarely get an ovation at York racecourse unless it’s a special occasion. Wednesday was just that with world-famous jockey Frankie Dettori bidding farewell at his last Ebor meeting with a masterful ride on Mostahdaf in the grade 1 Juddmonte Stakes.

Dettori, 52, did not let his legion of fans down with his famous flying dismount in the winner’s enclosure nor did he disappoint Mostahdaf’s backers with a winning tactical ride on John Gosden’s runner.

Interviewed on returning to the No 1 box, Dettori said: “I had to ensure the race was a true gallop — it was the best plan to beat Paddington.”

Sent off 4-6 favourite to win his seventh consecutive race, Paddington looked as if he might mount a challenge between the two and furlong pole but Aidan O’Brien’s runner was unable to peg back the front-running Mostahdef. In the closing stages, Hollie Doyle got a good finish out of Nashwa to take the second purse of £215,000.

After the race, Gosden was full of praise for Dettori. “He’s always been supreme. He’s the only rider who can go to Longchamp, ride from the front, and having the Frenchmen doing what he wants.

“He’s a genius, he can go anywhere in the world, he’s like a chameleon, he can adapt to any style of racing. He is quite something and we are going to miss him.”

Gosden said he was delighted with Nashwa’s performance in finishing second. “She is a good filly and there was no fluke in her taking second place. She showed her class and her owner was great to run her. He saw it was shaping up to be a small field and said we must support British racing.”

Angus Gold, racing manager for winning owners Shadwell, was understandably delighted with the result. He said: “The sheer number of big race winners for Shadwell this year has been remarkable.

“This was a proper race and it was very sad for York and this fantastic crowd there were only four runners, but it was still long on quality. We realised if we had any chance of beating Paddington, we had to take the game to him rather than let him have his own way in front.”

On future plans for Mostahdaf, Gold said: “If we happen to get a very dry autumn, then we can think about the Champion at Ascot but it’s usually soft by then.”

This was a bridge too far for Paddington with Ryan Moore telling trainer O’Brien that the horse had not travelled with his “usual fluency”.

O’Brien commented: “He had a tough race at Goodwood and maybe I pulled the elastic band too long. As for the future, anything is possible. We’ll see how he is.”

The cherry on top of another memorable day for Dettori was that he surpassed Lester Piggott’s record of five wins in the Juddmonte International. His first success came on Halling in 1996.

“It is my last Ebor meeting and my wife, Catherine, came along. It’s amazing to win six Internationals and beat Lester’s record,” he said.