• Dettori: ‘From two-and-a-half out I knew that I had won’• Unbeaten grey provides John Gosden with fifth St Leger successFrankie Dettori won his first St Leger in 1995, three years before Donnacha O’Brien, who rode the second-favourite in the latest renewal here on Saturday, was born. Twenty-four years later, he is still centre stage and a rider who can electrify a big-race crowd like no other, a talent he demonstrated once again as he steered Logician, the 5-6 favourite, to an uncomplicated success in the world’s oldest Classic, the rider’s 15th winner at Group One level this year.
One more Group One victory will equal Dettori’s best return of 16 in the 2001 season, when he rode the royal blue wave of Godolphin’s winners when the operation was at the peak of its powers. These days, it is the John Gosden stable that supplies the majority of his best horses and it looks like a case of when rather than if this will be confirmed as the finest season of Dettori’s illustrious career, shortly before his 49th birthday in December.