Legendary Italian jockey Frankie Dettori is widely regarded as one of the sport’s greatest of all-time. Across a glittering career, he was able to ride to victory in 287 Group 1 races, earn a record six Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe victories and achieve one of the most incredible achievements in racing, the ‘Magnificent Seven’ at Ascot in 1996. The latter was an unprecedented feat, which saw him win all seven races on the card, at odds of 25,000/1.
Yet, many casual observers or people who are unfamiliar with the sport of horse racing may be unaware of the level of discipline involved. While a champion boxer or mixed martial artist needs to make weight on a single day before a big fight, a champion jockey needs to make weight day after day, while maintaining a body capable of elite sporting performance. Here, we explore how health, wellness and discipline made Frankie Dettori an elite jockey.
Frankie Dettori’s Legendary Racing Career
Before exploring how Frankie Dettori achieved the ideal jockey physique across four decades, it is worth recapping precisely what the Italian achieved over his remarkable career. Dettori spent the vast majority of his career in the United Kingdom, where he became British champion on three occasions, in 1994, 1995 and 2004. However, in total, he won major races in more than 20 countries around the world, including six Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe victories in France.
His most iconic achievement came in 1996, as Frankie Dettori managed to win all seven races on the card at the British Festival of Racing at Ascot, including the prestigious Queen Elizabeth II Stakes. Although Dettori was already a well-known jockey at the time, the achievement was so momentous that he quickly became a household name across Britain. Frankie Dettori himself considers it to be the greatest moment of his legendary career.
The combined odds for winning all seven races on that day were around 25,000/1 and it has been claimed that his performance on that single occasion cost the betting industry around £40 million in payouts.
Today, Frankie Dettori now serves as a global ambassador for Stake.com, which is an online casino and sports betting platform, with an emphasis on cryptocurrency. The partnership, which was announced in 2025, sees Dettori bring his larger-than-life personality and expert knowledge on horse racing to the Stake audience. He will be offering his own unique insights and can provide Stake.com players with picks for the big races, drawing from his own experiences.
Exploring the Physical Demands of Horse Racing
Unless you are an avid fan of horse racing, with inside knowledge of the sport, chances are you have probably never given too much thought to the physical demands of being a jockey. Yet, it is one of the most physically gruelling sports, in part because there are competing demands of a light frame and extremely low body weight, while having a body that possesses the strength to control 500 kg race horses sprinting at incredible speeds.
At many points during his career, Frankie Dettori, who stands at 5ft 4 inches in height, was expected to maintain a weight as low as 8 stone, 6 lbs. This allowed him to remain competitive with jockeys who were operating at the minimum riding weight in the United Kingdom throughout the peak years of his storied career.
Those who are in the know about the demands of the sport regularly talk about the incredible balancing act required to carve out a body that is light enough to remain competitive, strong enough to control the fastest race horses and robust enough to endure the demands of multiple races over the course of a typical race day. In many ways, it defies logic to juggle these needs and maintain the discipline to race week after week.
Most other sports with demands that require extremely low body weight are only actually asking for this for extremely brief moments in time. With horse racing, this is a near constant demand.
The Role of Weight Management and Diet
Weight management is one of the single most crucial elements of a successful horse racing career. In fact, in an interview with Shortlist in 2015, Frankie Dettori described weight management as 95% of the job. The weight management demands are complex too, because simply maintaining a low weight is not enough to achieve success. Instead, a champion jockey needs to strike the right balance, so they stay light but avoid becoming physically weak.
On top of this, weight management demands in horse racing go beyond virtually any other sport you can think of. When a boxer cuts weight before their weigh-in, they only really need to be at that weight for a brief period on a single day and they are not expected to compete on that day. Instead, they have the ability to rehydrate and refuel. With horse racing, the requirement is to continually manage your weight, day after day, year after year.
Naturally, this needs tremendous discipline even to carve out a short career. What makes Frankie Dettori’s story unique is the sheer longevity involved. The vast majority of jockeys, even with lengthy careers, will retire at some point during their 40s. Very few jockeys have matched Dettori in remaining highly competitive well into their 50s.
At the heart of Dettori’s weight management efforts is an incredible discipline around food. Throughout the years, Frankie worked closely with some of the top nutritionists to create healthy meals, with a low calorie content. He has discussed eating a diet consisting largely of salads, yoghurts, nuts and white meat.
Dettori also publicly shared an example of a meal he eats on occasion: Chinese noodles with beef and green beans. This consists of lean rump steak, soy sauce, stir-fry vegetables, French beans and ready-cooked noodles. Using 150g of noodles and 150g of steak, you can create a meal that serves two, with each serving offering around 300 calories.
If that sounds like a meal you can imagine eating regularly, it is worth stressing that Dettori said in the aforementioned Shortlist interview that he only actually consumed steak around twice per year, as a treat.
Practical Steps to Manage Weight Effectively
In order to actually meet the gruelling demands of a top-level sport, while maintaining the kind of body that can not only compete but succeed on an unprecedented level, Frankie Dettori typically adopted some practical steps to help him to maintain discipline. This included having a very small eating window, which would today be consistent with concepts like intermittent fasting. Throughout his career, he restricted most of his eating to the evenings.
Dettori’s meals would generally be balanced around lean protein and healthy fats, while avoiding some of the heavy carbohydrates that might cause a spike in weight that could prove costly over a race. During some of the challenging times, when weight was difficult to maintain, he limited his diet to chicken and water, he once told The Irish Times.
Then, there are the more extreme stories, which do not even bear thinking about. Hours spent sweating out extra weight in a sauna, or keeping fluid intake low, risking serious physical harm. Hours riding on a horse simulator at home, in order to perfect his riding technique. Regular four or five mile runs to maintain his fitness.
When you bring all of this together, it paints the picture of a remarkable athlete, who succeeded for an unusual amount of time in an incredibly demanding sport through unmatched discipline and the wonders of sports science and nutrition.
Unique Challenges in Dettori’s Riding Career
In addition to the common challenges jockeys collectively encounter during their careers, there are a number of hurdles that Frankie Dettori had to clear during his time on top that were more unique to him as an individual.
In June 2000, Frankie Dettori was involved in a plane crash that tragically took the life of the pilot. Dettori was pulled from the wreckage and spent days in hospital recovering from his various injuries, which included a broken ankle.
There were racing-related injuries too, of course. Among them, a broken collarbone after a fall from a horse in 2005 and a dislocated shoulder experienced later in his career, during his time in California.
Frankie Dettori was also required to deal with a level of fame that greatly exceeds the vast majority of jockeys in the world. This brought with it some of its own challenges, on and off the race course. He was expected to compete in the biggest races, even when they did not necessarily suit his weight and body type. He was expected to deliver results time after time, in a way that is not necessarily expected of jockeys who are able to fly under the radar.
Flat-racing naturally favours younger riders. They are generally able to maintain lighter bodies and they are in their peak years in terms of physical fitness. Youth also offers faster recovery times. As his career went on, especially into his 40s and 50s, Dettori was having to compete with rivals who were significantly younger and better-suited to the sport.
As we age, our metabolism also slows, which makes it even harder to maintain a low body weight. Given Frankie Dettori was able to remain competitive at the elite level of the sport for much longer than the average rider, this meant he faced additional challenges when trying to keep his body weight within the acceptable limits. Dettori spoke several times about how it became even more difficult to maintain his physique as he grew older.
There were psychological struggles too, as you might imagine for someone living such an extreme lifestyle. At times, Dettori battled against bulimia. At his lowest, he received a ban from the sport for using cocaine. He later attributed his drugs ban to a bout of depression and has spoken publicly about mood swings and obsessive weight-checking.
Promoting Health and Wellness for Jockeys
Over the course of his career, Frankie Dettori was never afraid to be outspoken, but one of his best qualities was using his fame and unique platform to be an outspoken advocate for the health of his fellow jockeys.
In 2006, he was vocal about wanting minimum rider limits to be raised, not only to protect his own health, but for the safety of other jockeys. He told the BBC he was especially worried about the impact of extreme weight-cutting on young apprentices. He was clear that senior riders needed to speak out and threatened to quit the Jockeys’ Association if action was not taken, especially after a study highlighted risks associated with low bone density in the lightest riders.
His outspoken nature helped to draw attention to riders’ wellbeing issues, leading to change. Since his comments, the Professional Jockeys Association and British Racing have placed a much higher emphasis on jockey health, with resources for riders, helping them to maintain weight through healthy diets, rather than extreme methods.
This is an underrated aspect of his career and one of the attributes that has made him such a popular figure in the media. It will also continue to make him a positive brand ambassador for the likes of Stake.com. As Dettori stated at the time, his concern was less about himself, as he was already an experienced rider, but more about the next generation. He helped to draw attention to health issues, which have received a far greater focus ever since.
The Last Word
Frankie Dettori’s unique and charming personality helped to turn him into a mainstream figure in Britain, but at the heart of all of this was continuous success on the race courses around the country and across the wider world. This incredible, record-setting success was driven by extreme discipline, allowing him to maintain his weight, strength and endurance over a remarkable career, which has been highlighted not only for its high points but for its duration too.