Report
By HAROLD HEYS
THERE'S not a lot that gets a happier cheer in racing than one of Frankie Dettori's flying dismounts. You know it's coming; the surging crowd know it's coming, and the photographers, poised for the split-second shot, know it's coming. And Frankie doesn't disappoint!
A real showman, he never fails to squeeze every last ounce out of a success in a Group or Grade 1 contest anywhere in the world.
Most of us have seen his leap from the irons, arms outstretched, a big smile and a cat-like landing to a throaty roar.
Great stuff! But how many racing fans have been privileged to see Frankie reaching for the stars twice on the same afternoon?
The Churchill Downs unsaddling enclosure was certainly the place to be on Breeders' Cup afternoon; certainly after Ouija Board's breathtaking second win in the Filly and Mare Turf.
And my wife Christine and I found ourselves in the thick of it. Quite soon afterwards we were back there for a second time, cheering Frankie Boy after a second win on Brian Meehan's Red Rocks in the Turf. This time the Dettori smile was even broader, the confetti of petals torn from the vast garlands of flowers round each winner's neck even thicker. And the famous jump even higher!
It left us wondering whether Frankie had ever won two Group or Grade 1 races in the same afternoon. I seem to remember him doing a couple of flying dismounts at Nad al Sheba in Dubai a year or two back but they weren't to celebrate a pair of Group 1 races. He probably did it to lighten the pervading gloom of a top-class race meeting without any betting.
We'd been chatting at Atlanta airport a couple of days before the race to some of Ouija Board's biggest fans – her lass, Lord Derby's stud manager and some of their pals – and they all reckoned nothing would get near her. Heavy rain had stopped, the ground was drying out nicely and she was in the form of her life. We weren't the only ones to take the hint and manage to pay off a chunk of the holiday costs.
I practically begged a Canadian couple we were talking to just before the race to get off Wait a While and on to Ed Dunlop's five-year-old. We were rewarded soon afterwards with an over-the-top wave of a Fistful of Dollars and a beaming smile across the winner's enclosure. No problem, pardner.
We celebrated in style – with a couple of glasses of champagne. At close on a tenner a glass. But they did throw in a couple of strawberries, so that was all right. God knows how much a bottle of the stuff would have cost.
Ouija Board! What a star!. I'd always reckoned Petite Etoile was the best filly I'd ever seen, but now I'm not so sure. I thought those black and white silks were hemmed in approaching the final sweep into the straight but she coasted wide and raced clear.
Red Rocks? Well, consistent enough but perhaps a doubtful stayer? How wrong can you be? And, oh, how that near 10-1 winner would have come in useful for the add-on four days at the Bellagio in Las Vegas!
Only disappointment was that Bernardini, reckoned by many good judges – including Michael Dickinson – to be in the Secretariat class was run out of it by the South American import Invasor in the Classsic. George Washington had every chance but didn't keep up with the pace and took a hefty bump coming into the straight.
We'd enjoyed the Breeders' Cup meeting at Belmont in 2001 but Churchill Downs, beneath those two imposing spires, not quite beaten into submission by modern grandstands either side, had rather more charm and elegance. And the crowd of over 75,000 was the second biggest in Breeders' Cup history.
We've been on a few racing trips with Khider Messaoud who is Swinley Travel. Quite what such a colourful, urbane Frenchman is doing running a travel company in Wigan I haven't managed to work out. But he certainly knows how to arrange good trips.
As well as racing's "world championships" at the home of the Kentucky Derby and a spell in Vegas – Monte Carlo with Blackpool razzmatazz and a dash of Disneyland – we managed a day at the Grand Canyon and we sampled a mini-brewery's latest offering in Louisville - a light treacle with an ABV of over 11 per cent.
Not sure which was more breathtaking. Probably the treacle by a sore head.
All the photographs were taken by our photographer (Khider).