Frankie Dettori admits “I made a mistake” by making retirement announcement
Frankie Dettori has admitted he should never have announced he would retire at the end of this year.
The superstar jockey made the confession during the BBC ’s Sports Personality of the Year show on Tuesday night. The 52-year-old was one of six sports star shortlisted for the coveted prize but in the end finished outside the top three in the contest which was won by Lionesses goalkeeper Mary Earps.
Dettori recently took part in I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! in Australia but was the first to leave the show.
He is now taking a short break before he heads to California where he will pick up his career again, having made a U-turn on his original decision and then waved goodbye to Britain where he established himself as the world’s most famous jockey.
Dettori, who was unable to attend the event, spoke to the BBC by video link and reflected on his final season in Britain.
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“At the beginning of the season, I thought, ‘well, I’m 52 and I want to stop at the top’,” he said. "I watched (Cristiano) Ronaldo two years ago playing for Portugal in the World Cup and he was on the bench. I didn’t want to stop my career being on the bench.
“I thought when I called it a day things would ease off and I’d walk away into the sunset and say my last farewell to everyone. But the opposite happened, wherever I went I kept on winning,
“I did my farewells everywhere in Europe and I kept on winning and winning. I got to August thinking, ‘Oh my God, am I doing the right thing here?’”
Mary Earps with the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award (David Davies/PA Wire)He continued: “But unfortunately I’d told everyone I was quitting, so I’d kind of got myself snookered in the corner. I thought, ‘well, I can’t really carry on in England, because they organised so many farewell tours for me and a statue at Ascot’.
"But I’ve still got to get it out of my system, so my only option was emigrating to the USA, because it’s my last chance to perhaps continue what I love until one day I wake up and say, ‘enough is enough’.
“At the moment, because I’m still winning and the adrenaline is still there, the public still follow me – I’m sorry everyone, I made a mistake, I shouldn’t have said I was going to retire.”
Sir Anthony McCoy, voted SPOTY in 2010, remains the only jockey to have won the BBC prize. Dettori himself finished third in 1996, the year of his ‘Magnificent Seven’, when he went through the card with all seven winners at Ascot. Hollie Doyle was third in 2020.
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