Frankie
Dettori's flamboyant flying dismount has become a trademark, but the veteran Italian jockey says he's become a "slave" to the jump of jubilation after riding a winner.
The showpiece celebration, which he admits he acquired from a rider in the US, has helped make the colorful 47-year-old a crowd favorite at tracks around the world.
But Dettori, one of racing's most successful jockeys, says the legendary leap took a while to gain acceptance.
"I had some winters in California when I was a teenager and I stole it from a great jockey called Angel Cordero Jr.," Dettori told CNN's Winning Post at his home near Newmarket, England.
"I brought it to Europe and it didn't go down very well with the officials in the early years, but now people get behind it and enjoy it.
"And to be honest with you, if I don't do it the public boos so I'm a slave of my own trademark flying dismount."
Frankie Dettori celebrates after riding Stradivarius to win the Ascot Gold Cup.
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'Ultimate Ferrari'
Dettori, the son of prolific Sardinian jockey Gianfranco Dettori, came to England 32 years ago and has become one of the sport's leading figures.
The three-time champion jockey famously won all seven races on the card on British Champions' Day at Ascot in 1996, and he has clinched most of the world's top races, many multiple times.
This year Dettori won a second straight Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe in Paris on the John Gosden-trained Enable and rode the filly in her subsequent Breeders' Cup Turf triumph at Churchill Downs in Kentucky.
"She's the ultimate Ferrari," says Dettori of Enable.
"She's so fast, it's amazing. I get to ride her in the morning and she's nowhere near the horse she is at the races.
"When she gets to the races the blood starts pumping, the adrenaline goes and she just grows a foot and runs like a train."
