IT’S no exaggeration to say that Frankie Dettori’s riding career is the stuff of Hollywood scripts, with the charismatic Italian shooting to stardom at an early age, but beset by drama and misfortune, and when he fell foul of French drug testing in 2012, many suggested that the end was nigh for a man who had fallen out of favour with long-time mentor Sheikh Mohammed.

A link up with Al Shaqab Racing was a lifeline which helped keep the winners flowing, but it wasn’t always plain sailing, and the good ship Dettori was again close to the rocks when the decision was taken to remove him from Treve, and that led to him losing the right to ride all the French-trained Al Shaqab horses.