Frankie Dettori wins Champion Stakes at Ascot on his final ride in Britain

“I thought I would cry,” Frankie Dettori said here on Saturday after bringing down the curtain on his extraordinary career in Britain – for this year, at least – with a preposterous, last-to-first flourish on King Of Steel in the Champion Stakes that completed a 39-1 double on the day. “But I’m too happy to cry, to be honest. I didn’t expect it, it’s fantastic. What a day.”

Win or lose, this was always going to be Dettori’s afternoon, but in the end, he made sure that it was his from start to finish.

Having taken the opening stayers’ event with a beautifully judged ride on Trawlerman, he was touched off by Art Power, a 40-1 shot, aboard Kinross in the Champions Sprint. But there was no denying Dettori a second winner in the £1.3m feature event, as he brought King Of Steel with a powerful run up the outside to reel in Via Sistina and Oisin Murphy and cross the line three-quarters of a length in front.

The reception for Trawlerman was heartfelt, but for King Of Steel the 30,000-strong crowd raised the volume again, chanting Dettori’s name as if he were a centre-forward who had just scored a last-minute winner. “For the first race, it was mad,” he said. “This was another level to be honest, even with the Royal Ascot win [in the Gold Cup in June].

“It was incredible, everybody was cheering for me, they souped it up to be my last race so they were all up for it, and I couldn’t have wrote it better myself.

“That was special, ‘Oh, Frankie Dettori’, that’s one thing I’ll miss. I can’t take that to America [where Dettori will extend his riding career] unfortunately. I’m fairly new over there, but from the beginning of the season, it’s been tremendous. I wanted to finish at the top and you can’t get any more top than this, so I’m very proud.”

King Of Steel’s win may or may not prove to be Dettori’s final Group One victory in Britain, 33 years after he broke his duck at the highest level on Markofdistinction in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes.

But it was definitely the first Group One success both for King Of Steel, the runner-up in the Derby in June, and his owner, Kia Joorabchian, one of the football world’s most high-profile agents.

“I had the same, surreal moment when I won my first Group One with Markofdistinction, everything went dark,” Dettori said. “I know it’s quite dark anyway, but the euphoria, feeling this can’t be right, this is not real life, this is perhaps some dream. But then I realised that it did happen and I felt numb really, it’s just very hard to explain.

“I struggled from the beginning of the race. I couldn’t really get King Of Steel to travel, he was stumbling, and then he started to come good. Then I got behind Mickaël [Barzalona on Horizon Dore], who I thought was the horse to beat.

“Then I thought, ‘Oisin is going pretty good’, so I got on his tail. When they kicked, they left me a little bit, but King Of Steel just found a second wind, dug deep, the crowd got behind me and we got him over the line.”

Joorabchian has been waiting a considerable time for his first Group One success given the kind of sums he has invested in bloodstock in recent seasons, and could yet be tempted to give Roger Varian’s colt one more start, in the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Santa Anita in a fortnight’s time, before he heads off to winter quarters.

“I’m so emotional, Frankie is the king of Ascot,” Joorabchian said. “Why is he retiring? What a ride. He deserved this more than anything in the world.

“This guy King Of Steel deserves it too, he’s come second in the Derby and we’ve put him in some really tough tests and he’s come through.”

Dettori’s win on King Of Steel was his ninth at the highest level in 2023, and his 289th career victory at Group One or Grade One level.

It was also notable as King Of Steel was the only one of the day’s six winners to come from off the pace.

The remaining five, including Big Rock, the runaway winner of the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, were all on or near the pace from the off. But then, King Of Steel’s rider has always done things his own way, and 33 years on from his first Group One success, the Dettori effect remains as irresistible as ever.