With a final, flying leap from the saddle, on a warm summer's evening in Brazil, Frankie Dettori brought one of the most colorful careers in the history of the sport to a rousing close Feb. 1 after winning the Grande Premio Estado do Rio de Janeiro (G1) on Bet You Can, a grandson of Into Mischief .
It was a grand display of living history, made that much sweeter by the presence of Jorge Ricardo, who rode fourth-place Open the Door. Ricardo, 64, sits on top of the jockey world with a win total now approaching 13,400.
Dettori drew the curtain on an international odyssey that graced parts of five decades. Larger than life and with a personality to match, the native of Milan, Italy, went out the way fans of the game wish all their heroes could exit—smiling, waving, and winning.
The game has been there before, though not often enough. Farewells are usually quiet affairs, even for racing's greatest stars.
Eddie Arcaro's final ride in North America took place at Aqueduct Racetrack on Nov. 13, 1961. Arcaro, 46 at the time, rode a few races in Australia and New Zealand over the holidays and was reportedly gearing up for the spring season in New York when he dropped his retirement announcement in a press conference at Toot Shor's Restaurant in Manhattan on April 3, 1962. The news made the front page of the New York Times.
Angel Cordero Jr. was still recovering from the effects of a terrible accident that took place at Aqueduct in January of 1992 when he tearfully announced his retirement that May. He had broken his arm, three ribs, and lost his spleen. Three years later, Cordero made a brief return to competition, winning a stakes race at El Comandante in his native Puerto Rico, followed by a handful of rides in New York. Then he called it quits for good.
It was Cordero's high-flying act from victorious horses that was copied by Dettori, at first as an homage and then eventually as a trademark flourish demanded by his fans. Cordero, in turn, was inspired by Avelino Gomez, whose soaring dismounts characterized his Hall of Fame career while riding mainly in Canada, where he won most of his 4,081 races. It was there he died from injuries suffered in a crash at Woodbine on June 21, 1980, while riding in the Canadian Oaks. He was 52.
The great jockeys who get to choose how they end their careers consider themselves lucky. Pat Day, Jerry Bailey, Sandy Hawley, and Chris McCarron were among those who circled the moment and got there in one piece.
Bill Shoemaker wrapped up his farewell tour of U.S. racetracks after 41 years in the saddle with the legend's last ride at Santa Anita Park on Feb. 3, 1990. A crowd of 64,573 turned up to watch the 58-year-old Texan finish fourth that day and be carried off the track on the shoulders of his fellow riders—including a young apprentice named Frankie Dettori, who was spending winters in California to sharpen his skills.
The grandest of all finales, though, occurred 60 years ago this March, when John Longden chose the prestigious San Juan Capistrano Handicap on the last Saturday of the 1966 Santa Anita season for the final ride of a career that began in the early 1920s. Longden owned to age 59 at the time but felt older, and it did not help that he was thrown and then kicked by a filly just two months earlier, suffering a pinched nerve in his back.
Longden already had won 6,030 races—including all three jewels of the 1943 Triple Crown on Count Fleet—and had surpassed Sir Gordon Richards 10 years earlier at the top of the winner's list. He knew the end was near, but he wanted to ride George Royal one more time, especially since they had won the San Juan together the year before.
Longden kept his cards close until the Tuesday before the race, when he would be attending the Pasadena Sports Ambassadors Club for a banquet in his honor. He kept mum while being praised by friends and peers until Dick Nash, Santa Anita's director of publicity, asked, "John, you've just had a birthday. What are your thoughts about the future?"
"That's when he said he would ride his last race on George Royal in the San Juan," said Dan Smith, Del Mar's retired director of media relations who was Nash's assistant at the time. "Because of John's status, that was big news. I think Alex Kahn from UPI (United Press International) was there that night and phoned the story into his office. On that Thursday we had a press conference in the publicity offices that was very well attended. Then on Friday came the entries for the race, and believe me, George Royal was in tough."
The field for the '66 San Juan was topped by Hill Rise, winner of the Man o' War Stakes and the Santa Anita Handicap in 1965. The mare Straight Deal was fresh from victories on the dirt in the Santa Margarita Handicap and the turf in the Santa Barbara Handicap. Polar Sea, Tudor Fame, and Cedar Key had won stakes at the meet, C.V. Whitney's Tom Cat was a tough customer, and Plaque, a son of Princequillo, had been a gallant second already at the meet in the Arcadia Handicap and a division of the San Luis Rey Handicap.
That Saturday dawned dank and gloomy. Even as the afternoon warmed, a winter layer of smog descended, typical of those days before the advent of the catalytic converter. Longden was named on four horses, and to the delight of the 60,792 in attendance he won right off the bat in the fourth race aboard Chiclero, a rapid son of Nashville.
Longden's horses were unplaced in the sixth and the seventh, and then came time for the San Juan. Wearing the silks of owners Robert Hall and Ernie Hammond of British Columbia, Longden got a leg up from trainer Don Richardson and headed to the track for one last time.
"George Royal's odds were 6-1, but they should have been more like 20-1 based on his record going in," Smith said. "That's how much sentimental money there was for John."
The race began at the top of the hillside course, almost totally obscured by the smog. As the field passed the stands the first time, Plaque and Bobby Ussery were on the lead, while Longden trailed at the back.
"George Royal was a runner all the way, he really was," Smith said. "And John was riding like he had a license to do anything. On the first turn he bumped the hell out of Cedar Key. Then on the backside where he started picking off horses, he shut off Hill Rise and Manny Ycaza. He was daring them to take him down."
George Royal collared free-wheeling Plaque at the eighth pole and threatened to put the race away, but Ussery's horse fought back. They hit the wire as one, and the photo gave George Royal the nod, by a nose.
Draped in flowers and surrounded by family, officials and media, Longden doffed his helmet to the roaring crowd, proudly displaying his fine toupee while choking back tears. Up in the press box, Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray tried to find the meaning of such miraculous moment colliding with the end of an era.
"A California race meeting without John Longden in the irons?" Murray wrote. "Unthinkable. Unsupportable. France without love. Paris without spring. Italy without music. Germany without bands. Baseball without beer. Weddings without tears."
Smith headed straight for the jockeys' room to catch the reaction of riders who had never known the game without Longden. Inside on a blackboard, someone had freshly scrawled, "Only 968 more winners to 7,000. Do you really think you'll quit, John Longden?" Bill Shoemaker, a lad of 34, was asked if he thought he'd every break Longden's record.
"I just hope I live as long as Longden," Shoe replied.
At the door of the room, Smith encountered Ussery.
"I tried to be profound," Smith recalled. "I said, 'Hey, Bobby, maybe it was best the way it turned out. You might have been like Bob Ford, the guy who shot Jesse James.'"
Ussery, competitive to the core, spit out a blunt epithet, then added, "I wanted to beat that old man so bad I could taste it."
