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It has been a thrilling, magnificent and at times rocky path, but this time, it appears Frankie Dettori's decision is final. The most storied jockey over the last 40 years is set to head into retirement after the main card at the Breeders’ Cup at Del Mar on Saturday, where he has three chances to add a farewell Grade One winner to nearly 300 already in his record. Racing may not see a career like his ever again.

An Iconic Figure

Alongside Lester Piggott and maybe John McCririck over the past 50 years, Frankie Dettori registers with almost everybody, no surname required. The public knows his identity, even if they have no interest at all in what he does. In today's world that has been fragmented by digital platforms and the internet, Dettori may well be the last racing figure who will ever experience such immediate name-recognition across a broad swathe of Britain's people.

Dettori’s lifetime in the sport, after all, goes back to a time when the show A Question Of Sport regularly pulled in over 10 million viewers, and a three-year stint as a team leader was more than enough to cement him as the bubbly, unforgettable figure of the sport. His final year on the program was 2004, which was also the year when he secured the top jockey award for the third and last occasion. For many in the UK, however, he has probably been the champion for many seasons since.

A Hard-Earned Fame

It is, in many respects, a hard-earned fame, a double-edged reward for events on and off the track which have often pushed Dettori into the headlines, since that memorable day at Ascot in 1996 when he overcame massive 25,000-1 odds to win all seven races that day.

Back in June 2000, he was rescued from a fiery crash of a small plane by his fellow rider, Ray Cochrane, after a crash on takeoff where the pilot lost his life. When he finally ended his quest for a Derby winner in 2007, that too was front-page news.

While everyone admires a winner, they often love an imperfect hero and a comeback all the more. A half-year suspension following a positive drug test for cocaine would have been the end of most jockeys in their 40s, plenty of time for trainers and owners to find a younger alternative. For Dettori, though, suspension in December 2012 was a bridge to a revived partnership with trainer John Gosden at Newmarket, and a fresh succession of champions and classic victors, including Enable, Golden Horn and Stradivarius.

Ups and Downs

The celebrated successes and lows have been an essential part of Dettori’s story, right up until the embarrassing confession in March that he filed for bankruptcy following a long-standing disagreement with tax authorities regarding unpaid taxes, a situation that he attempted, and did not succeed, to keep private.

There were so many twists in his story, in fact, that it can be easy to overlook that without his tremendous, once-in-a-generation skill, there would have been no narrative whatsoever.

Natural Ability

It was clear from the start as a young apprentice that he had an instinctive rapport with the horses when Dettori was on board.

Steeds performed for him, and improved for him. Back in 1990, he became the first teen since Piggott to achieve 100 wins in a season, and also announced his arrival among the elite with a Group One double at Ascot, on the same card that he would charge through unbeaten only six years later. The famous flying dismount, copied from the American legend Angel Cordero Jr, was added to his routine in 1994, and the buzz from winning major races has always stayed with him. Nor has the gift of sensing, with something akin to clairvoyance, where to sit, when to strike and where openings will appear.

The Future Ahead

But what next for the recognizable figure of British racing? It will not be easy to finally let go, regardless if Dettori pursues his apparent desire to take “a few rides in South America, something that he always wanted to do”. This is not, after all, an ambition that he had mentioned previously.

But the calamitous decision to accept the tax advice that resulted in his dispute with HMRC means that Dettori will not draw down the curtain with sufficient funds in the bank to kick back and take it easy.

New Role and Opportunities

He has been appointed to a new position as an international ambassador with the soccer agent Kia Joorabchian's burgeoning Amo Racing enterprise. Dettori told Matt Chapman on At The Races on Friday this was the main reason for his exit now, along with the chance to conclude at the Breeders’ Cup. “Such chances don’t come along, very often. I like the set-up – it's a youthful team with huge goals,” explained the jockey.

Joorabchian personally, was effusive in his compliments for his new ambassador on Thursday at Del Mar. “He’s an icon, a genuine legend in the sport,” Joorabchian said. “When you talk about elite athletes like LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Lionel Messi and Pelés and people like that, Frankie represents that to horse racing. When you go into Royal Ascot, you see a statue there, you know that he’s made a big impact countless lives worldwide.

“He’s not here|“He isn't here} to entertain people, he’s here to actually work and he will working with us very closely. He will participate in every area of our operations [but] he won’t be a racing manager. He is an international ambassador.”

Television reality shows is another possibility, though previous appearances on Celebrity Big Brother and I'm A Celebrity often showed a moodier side of his personality, behind the ebullient public persona. In both programs, he was an early exit due to viewer votes.

It may be that Dettori personally does not really know what he'll do and how to spend his time once his race-riding days are over. And for another 24 hours at least, he stays a top-level professional jockey, concentrating on three mounts at one of the globe's prestigious and dazzling events on the schedule.

The Final Ride

A five-year-old filly named Argine will be Dettori’s final Grade One mount in the Breeders’ Cup Mile, the identical event where he achieved his first Breeders’ Cup success in 1994. Her form at home in Japan suggests that she needs to improve to compete, yet few jockeys historically have risen to an occasion like Frankie Dettori.

For one final time, is it time for Frankie?