Frankie Dettori: 'I'm a veteran - I go to Royal Ascot and I'm like a fossil'

Frankie Dettori was a big fan of the old Ascot. This is not a newsflash, given that it's the track upon which his enduring reputation as the totem and touchstone of British racing is founded; nor is it a condemnation of the new Ascot, a track on which his level of achievement isn't too dusty, either. It is, though, a gauge of Dettori's driving forces as a jockey and a mark of his character as a man, that talk of racing on the ancient turf still brings an unmistakable snap to his celery.

It's nothing to do with history or tradition. Frankie looks dapper in top hat and tails and he brings a certain refreshing Italian inappropriateness to any British social occasion, but his love of the former Ascot is far more to do with the other Mediterranean traits, of eclat and elan, gusto and machismo, that the 48-year-old imported to this country as a boy and has clung stylishly to ever since.

"I preferred the old Ascot because it was trickier," he begins, happy to relive glory days from the first few chapters of his story. "It was a young jockey's track, a daredevil track where you had to take risks, and that suited me down to the ground.