{"id":947635,"date":"2026-05-09T05:20:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T05:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/947635\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T05:20:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T05:20:16","slug":"frankie-dettori-i-had-bulimia-for-a-decade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/947635\/","title":{"rendered":"Frankie Dettori: I had bulimia for a decade"},"content":{"rendered":"

My Sporting Life is The i Paper\u2019s look behind the curtain at what drives sports stars to greatness. This week, we speak to legendary jockey Frankie Dettori, widely considered one of the greatest in horse racing history. Famous for his flying dismount celebration, he won over 3,300 races in a career spanning over 35 years, including the \u201cMagnificent Seven\u201d at Royal Ascot in 1996.<\/p>\n

\u2018The Magnificent Seven\u2019 was my highest moment<\/p>\n

It\u2019s 30 years in September, actually. I won every race, the first one to do it, the bookmakers lost \u00a340m and the punters won \u00a340m. To this day, people from all walks of life come up to me saying that I helped pay for their wedding or their mortgage or their holiday, so that\u2019s amazing.<\/p>\n

Everybody wanted a piece of me that day. I had to sign race cards and didn\u2019t leave for a couple of hours. All I wanted to do was go home, put on my pyjamas and go to bed.<\/p>\n

\"\"Dettori leaps from Stradivarius after winning the Gold Cup in 2019 (Photo: Getty)<\/p>\n

Instead my wife dragged me to her friend\u2019s 21st birthday, and we ended up having a massive row. We were fighting over the duvet. So it didn\u2019t end that well.<\/p>\n

Like every kid, I wanted to be a footballer<\/p>\n

But unfortunately, everybody grew a foot and I didn\u2019t. I started on the right wing, and then I was too slow because the others were bigger than me, so I ended up at right-back. Now I think the bench is my best position.<\/p>\n

When I went to school in Milan, I was the only one who supported Juventus<\/a>, so I got a good hiding four times a year. Obviously, Michel Platini was my favourite player growing up. Liam Brady was another one of my heroes.<\/p>\n

I actually got to meet Liam a few years ago. He speaks fluent Italian. We became friends. He likes his racing. He took me to watch Arsenal<\/a>, because he knew I\u2019m an Arsenal supporter.<\/p>\n

I quit racing so I didn\u2019t end up getting killed<\/p>\n

The racehorse goes from standing to full speed in six strides. We race inches from each other. It\u2019s quite selfish, but I don\u2019t think anyone can enjoy anything like being a jockey on top of a horse in front of 40,000 people. It\u2019s been a big part of my life, and something I still miss.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately when you ride horses, you are going to fall. If you knew you were going to fall, you wouldn\u2019t do it. It\u2019s part and parcel of the job. I broke my ankle twice, both elbows, collarbones, both shoulders, jaw, not counting fingers, ribs and toes. But apart from that, not too bad.<\/p>\n

The last few months, I kind of lost that fire. I didn\u2019t have the killer instinct. And I thought, well, if I don\u2019t stop, I\u2019m going to end up killing myself. It\u2019s a dangerous sport<\/a>. You have to be 100 per cent committed.<\/p>\n

\"\"The Italian has enjoyed a long association with the Royal Family over the years (Photo: Getty)<\/p>\n

I used to lose two or three pounds every morning<\/p>\n

When I first started racing, nobody really knew about carbohydrates, protein, good fat, bad fats. I had a warm room with a running machine. That way I could sweat off the weight I had to lose.<\/p>\n

The scale doesn\u2019t lie. You try not to take shortcuts. For a period of 10 years, between my 30s and 40s, I was bulimic. I was eating to satisfy my brain and my stomach, and then I would throw it back up, because otherwise I couldn\u2019t make the weight. And then I got caught in this cycle.<\/p>\n

I took diuretics to make me wee more, to lose water. They gave me cramps. People out there still do it, and I feel for them, because it\u2019s easy to get stuck in a spiral.<\/p>\n

I was at a very low point after the plane crash<\/p>\n

I survived, but my pilot died. Mentally, it was tough. It was a very challenging moment.<\/p>\n

Maybe I should have sought help at the time. I asked myself so many questions. Why I didn\u2019t die? Why I was still alive? It was a difficult time for me and my family. I was a bit lost.<\/p>\n

But, you know, time heals. I had good people around me, loved ones who were there to support me. It\u2019s something that took a long while for me to process.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve got a bone to pick with Usain Bolt<\/p>\n

\"FrankieFrankie Dettori is playing for the World XI at Soccer Aid (Photo: UNICEF)<\/p>\n

I was in Australia for the Melbourne Cup, and after racing, we always used to go to the casino. After a couple of drinks, I thought I\u2019d better to go to bed, so I pressed the button for the lift and walked in and there was Usain. He was there with his bodyguard.<\/p>\n

I said, \u201cHey Usain, where are you going? I\u2019m coming with you!\u201d And his bodyguard said, \u201cNo, you\u2019re not,\u201d and threw me out of the lift! He picked me up and chucked me out. And he just stood there laughing!<\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t seen him since but Usain, I\u2019m looking forward to playing in your team and making this year\u2019s Soccer Aid team successful.<\/p>\n

Frankie Dettori will play for the World XI at Soccer Aid for UNICEF on Sunday 31 May at the London Stadium. Adult tickets start from \u00a320 and juniors from \u00a310: socceraid.org.uk\/tickets<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"My Sporting Life is The i Paper\u2019s look behind the curtain at what drives sports stars to greatness.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":947636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4107],"tags":[288,264413,1071,29189,79,26899,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-947635","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-racing","8":"tag-horse-racing","9":"tag-my-sporting-life","10":"tag-racing","11":"tag-soccer-aid","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-sports-interview","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116542939529215003","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=947635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/947636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=947635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=947635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=947635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}