Dettori in demand for Icon ride
Frankie Dettori is in line for the plum ride aboard hot favourite Sixties Icon in the Ladbrokes St Leger at York on Saturday week.
Trainer Jeremy Noseda is keen to secure the services of Godolphin’s retained jockey after the Italian booted home the Galileo colt in the Gordon Stakes at Glorious Goodwood last time out.
Dettori won the final Classic of the season last year aboard Aidan O’Brien’s Scorpion, but may end up facing a dilemma if asked to partner Ouija Board in the Baileys Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown on the same afternoon.
Speaking at a Ladbrokes-organised press visit to his Newmarket yard, Noseda said: “I hope very much that Frankie will take the ride, but it will depend on what Godolphin are doing.
“If they make it possible for him to ride, he will then have to make a decision between us or Ouija Board.
“But there is no shortage of jockeys and plenty of people have asked.”
Sixties Icon is now the 5-4 favourite with the sponsors after some high-profile defections in recent days and Noseda believes he has a live candidate on his hands.
“I have thought for a long time that he will get a mile and six furlongs well,” he explained.
“He is a progressive horse and can only get better.
“He has done most of his racing on fast ground but he has also shown he is effective on good to soft.”
Unraced as a two-year-old, Sixties Icon has gone from strength to strength this season, finishing seventh in the Vodafone Derby before taking third in the King Edward VII Stakes at Royal Ascot.
“We had a bug in the yard around this time last year and Proclamation returned home from the Sprint Cup sick, which is why he never ran last year,” explained Noseda.
“He disappointed first time at Newmarket but he got tied up in the race and I think he may have had stage fright on the day and ran well below what we expected him to.
“We thought he would be in the first three but he finished sixth.
“He then went to Windsor and won his maiden. My plan then was a mile-and-a-half handicap at Royal Ascot but the owner wanted to go for the Derby, so we did.
“That race can make or break a horse and it made him. It turned him into much more of a professional and really educated him.”
The prospect of a first British Classic success for Noseda, who first attended the Leger in 1974 to witness Bustino’s triumph, is really whetting his appetite.
“English Classics are the greatest races in the world, and would be worth five French Classics,” he added.
“I am an Englishman and these Classics are the greatest traditions in the world.”
