The pressure is huge but Frankie Dettori ready to perform aboard horse he adores

In between the last Saturday of September and the first Saturday of October Frankie Dettori was not seen on a racecourse. Instead, he kept himself safe, gave the odd interview, pounded a treadmill and thought. He thought from one Saturday to the next about Enable’s impending date with destiny.

That should come as no surprise. Dettori has been thinking the same thoughts all year long.

He might now be 48 years old, a veteran of his profession, but Dettori has never experienced a more fruitful year than this one. On Arc weekend's opening afternoon he surpassed his 2001 personal best Group 1 haul when riding his 17th top-flight winner of the campaign.

Three of those victories have come aboard Enable, the horse he has cherished more than any in a marathon riding career that has yielded a record six Arc triumphs, the first claimed 24 years ago on Lammtarra.

"I love her so much," said Dettori in the Racing Post Sunday Big Read interview.

"She's taken me places emotionally that I've never been before and I don't think there'll be another horse like her, winning the creme de la creme of Group 1s for three years. You have to go back to horses like Brigadier Gerard to find anything to compare to what she's done.

"I'm an emotional guy and God knows what it's going to be like on Sunday."

Frankie Dettori rides Enable in her pre-Arc racecourse gallop at NewmarketCredit: Edward Whitaker

Should he win, we have a fair idea what it will be like. Frankie will be like only Frankie can be when savouring a massive moment, namely loud, ecstatic and extroverted. Yet in the days before this Arc those close to him make clear he has been a very different sort of person – quiet, contemplative and pensive, as befits a sportsman who, as boss John Gosden recently explained, hits lows as well as highs.

"This means everything to him," said Peter Burrell, Dettori's manager for the last 32 years.

"What he has been going through is absolute pure pressure. I think a lot of people would be feeling the strain much more than Frankie is doing. I would describe him as nervous-excited. He just wants race time to arrive so he can convert his nervousness into energy.

"This feels like how it was before Authorized's Derby. Frankie had never won the Derby before and Authorized was favourite. The level of pressure now feels the same as it was then. The expectation is equally high."

Burrell added: "To me he still looks the teenager who was given a lift from Newmarket high street to Sandown in Steve Cauthen's car. Steve looked around from the front seat and said: 'Don't say a word to me until we get there.' Frankie had to zip his mouth shut the whole way. He had a million questions he wanted to ask, but Steve wouldn't let him ask them."

Now Dettori is the one constantly asked questions. When the questions are about Enable he is invariably delighted to answer them.

Frankie Dettori with his manager Peter Burrell (centre) and agent Ray CochraneCredit: Edward Whitaker

"He has been talking to me about this race for months," said another key member of the support team, agent Ray Cochrane. "He has kept saying how he can't wait for it to come. That's because he loves her and he wants her to win. He is forever talking about her and it's always positive. He even tells me when he has given her a Polo.

"I would say this means more to him than any race he has ridden in – and he is going into it in great shape.

"He has been training all week. He will already have worked out how the race is going to be run and how he is going to ride her. He will know where where he is going to be and what he is going to do. He just wants to be sure that at the end of the race a good job has been done."

Burrell believes in an attempt to get that job done, his friend and client will not err from a familiar path.

"My sense is that Frankie is determined not to do anything different," said Burrell. "He is determined to deliver."

He also believes Dettori, riding better than ever more than three decades on from that silent car journey with Cauthen, is determined to carry on, and laughs when asked if there is any chance the sport's biggest star might announce his retirement if Enable becomes the Arc's hat-trick queen.

"No, none whatsoever," insisted Burrell. "His current thinking is that we'll have to drag him away from the job."

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