'He could see the tsunami happening' - how Dettori hit the bookies for £40m

Recalling some of the greatest gambles in racing history. This week: Frankie Dettori and the Magnificent Seven

Dettori's dream day

To win every contest at a race meeting, 'going through the card' in racing parlance, is a coveted feat rarely achieved by any jockey or trainer. To do it on one of the most important racedays of the year was the stuff of dreams for Frankie Dettori, catapulting him in one afternoon from racing's bright young star to household name. On the other side, it was the stuff of nightmares for the bookmakers who bore the brunt of his incredible achievement, which quickly became immortalised as 'Frankie's Magnificent Seven'.

The people's favourite

Dettori went to Ascot on Saturday, September 28, 1996, as the reigning champion jockey. He was there for the Festival of British Racing, a seven-race card highlighted by the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, in which he was booked to partner 2,000 Guineas winner Mark Of Esteem. That seemed his best chance from a full book of seven rides that had a promising look but hardly set the alarm bells ringing for bookmakers.

Frankie Dettori: his brilliant riding and flamboyant personality had made him a favouriteCredit: Alan Crowhurst (Getty Images)

Yet many punters invested faith and money in Dettori, whose brilliant riding and flamboyant personality had made him the people's favourite. On this day, as Dettori rode winner after winner, the snowball effect of all those bets, many of them tied up in accumulators, quickly turned into an avalanche that the bookies were powerless to stop.

From snowball to avalanche

In the first race, off at 2.00, Dettori made all to claim the Cumberland Lodge Stakes on the Saeed bin Suroor-trained Wall Street, the 2-1 favourite. That was a win he expected. He was not so confident on 12-1 shot Diffident in the next, the Diadem Stakes, but scored by a short head from the unlucky-in-running favourite Lucayan Prince. Then he took the QEII on Mark Of Esteem. Three out of three for Dettori and Bin Suroor; this was already a great day.

Dettori switched camps in the fourth race, riding topweight Decorated Hero for John Gosden in the 26-runner Festival Handicap, and landed his easiest win of the afternoon by three and a half lengths on the 7-1 chance. The bookies knew they were in big trouble. As Mike Dillon, Ladbrokes' long-serving PR director, said: "Frankie is Mr Racing to some people and they'll back him blind whether he's on Pegasus or the pack horse, so it was always going to be a problem from midway through the afternoon."

The liabilities continued to pile up as Dettori won the fifth on Fatefully, again for Bin Suroor, and then the sixth on the Ian Balding-trained Lochangel. One race to go . . .

The end game

Just over three and a half hours after the first race, it all came down to the seventh, the Gordon Carter Handicap at 5.35, in which Dettori was on Fujiyama Crest. At the start of the day this had been his least fancied ride but now, with bookmakers desperate to reduce liabilities on multiple bets, the Michael Stoute-trained gelding was sent off 2-1 favourite.

Dillon said: "I was in regular contact with our trading director Colin Miles. He could see the tsunami happening, so we started sending money to the track, trying to shorten Frankie's horses. In the morning Fujiyama Crest had been friendless at 12-1 and 14-1, but in the minutes before the race he was being backed at 2-1. It was the most bizarre thing you could imagine."

No hard feelings: Mike Dillon of Ladbrokes shakes Frankie Dettori warmly by the throat on the 20th anniversary of the Magnificent SevenCredit: Edward Whitaker

This was seen as a big opportunity by some on-course bookmakers. Chief among them was Gary Wiltshire, who recalled: "I thought this was my chance to be a millionaire. The first bet I laid was £40,000 at 7-2 with Coral. All the offices smashed into him but I didn't take one public pound on that horse. It was all trade money. With all the bets added together, I had him as a £1.4 million loser."

The moment of reckoning was not long in coming. Having set out to make all, Dettori hung on by a neck to make history on Fujiyama Crest.

The 25,095-1 seven-timer

Only two jockeys – Sir Gordon Richards and Alec Russell – had gone through an entire British card undefeated before, but they did that at fixtures with only six contests. The Magnificent Seven was an epoch-making achievement that turned Dettori into a global superstar, and his 25,095-1 seven-timer cost the betting industry as much as £40 million.

Good publicity: punter Darren Yates celebrates winning half a million pounds on his hero Frankie Dettori's greatest day at AscotCredit: Edward Whitaker

One of the punters who won big was Darren Yates, now a well-known owner but then a self-employed joiner. He placed a 50p Super Heinz and a £1 each-way accumulator on Dettori's mounts, for an outlay of £67.58. He won £550,823.54. "I watched the last race in a little local bookies called Pauline's. When Frankie won I felt numb," he recalled.

As for Wiltshire, it took him four years, and required him to sell his house, but he paid off his debts. Looking back, he said: "Would I do it again? No. I thought I was being clever, laying a horse who should have been 20-1 at 2-1, but I wasn't clever because Frankie won."

Read more from this series:

Gay Future, the Cartmel coup and why it went down in racing folklore

Vincent O'Brien: the astonishing coup that founded a racing empire

JP McManus: 'We loaded up on him – he had been laid out for the race'

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