Early career in Newmarket In the spring of 1987 Dettori was back in Cumani's yard in Newmarket and started to ride in Britain as an apprentice jockey. His first win in Britain came at
Goodwood on 9 June 1987, riding Lizzy Hare to for Cumani. That season he rode eight winners, before spending the winter of 1987/88 in California, employed as a work rider for the trainer Richard Cross. While in California Dettori was taught by jockey
Ángel Cordero Jr. how to do a flying dismount, something that would later become his trademark. In 1989 Dettori became champion apprentice jockey with 75 wins and rode his first winner of a group race,
Legal Case in the
Select Stakes at Goodwood. In the spring of 1990 he took up a position of stable jockey to Cumani. That year he rode eight Group 1 winners for Cumani, and four for other trainers, including
Henry Cecil.
Markofdistinction provided him with his first win at Royal Ascot in June 1990 and his first Group 1 win in September. The 1991 and 1992 seasons saw fewer winners as Cumani had lost many of his best horses when major owner the Aga Khan removed his horses from training in England. In 1992 Dettori won the
Prix du Jockey Club on
Polytain, trained by Antonio Spanu in France, and the
Ascot Gold Cup on
Drum Taps, trained by
Lord Huntingdon. In 1995, Dettori was again champion jockey. Godolphin horses provided him with two more British Classic victories,
Moonshell and
Classic Cliche in the
St Leger, while
Lammtarra won the
King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes and the
Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe. Twenty years later he would refer to it as his greatest sporting achievement. On 1 June 2000, Dettori and fellow jockey
Ray Cochrane were aboard a
Piper Seneca plane which crashed on takeoff at Newmarket on its way to
Goodwood in Sussex. Cochrane pulled Dettori from the wreckage but was unable to save pilot Patrick Mackey. Dettori suffered a broken ankle and facial cuts and spent several days in Addenbrooke's Hospital After the plane crash, Dettori devoted less time to racing and more time to TV work on
A Question of Sport. Although still riding successfully in the big races, he had in his own words become a part-timer. It was his wife who encouraged him to get back to riding in the small meetings as well as the major ones, and, in 2004, he won the jockeys' championship for a third time. Dettori's relationship with Godolphin was under increasing strain by 2012. In the spring of that year, Godolphin hired two younger jockeys,
Mickaël Barzalona and
Silvestre de Sousa, to ride alongside Dettori who found himself "jocked off" in big races. In October, Dettori rode
Camelot for Godolphin's rival
Coolmore Stud in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe and later the same month Godolphin announced that they would not be continuing Dettori's retainer the following year. Following his six-month ban, Dettori made his racing comeback at Epsom on 31 May 2013. A week later, he won his first race since the ban, riding Asian Trader at
Sandown. That month he was signed as retained rider in Britain for Sheikh Joaan Al Thani's Al Shaqab Racing. In 2016, Dettori rode
Galileo Gold to win the 2000 Guineas for Al Shaqab Racing. He rode the
Juddmonte-owned Enable to further Group 1 victories, including another win in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe. Also in the colours of Juddmonte, stayer Stadivarius provided Dettori with three consecutive Ascot Gold Cup wins in 2018–2020. On 17 December 2022 during an interview with ITV Racing, Dettori announced that he would be retiring at the end of the following season, with his final rides likely to come at the November 2023 Breeders' Cup meeting at
Santa Anita Park in
California. He said that, having just turned 52, he wanted to retire while he was still getting good horses to ride in the big races. By the time he announced his forthcoming retirement, he had ridden 282 Group/Grade 1 winners worldwide, including 21 British Classic winners. On a return to Dubai in March, Country Grammer could manage only seventh place in the Dubai World Cup, but on the same evening Dettori won the Group 1
Dubai Turf on the Gosden-trained
Lord North. On what was scheduled to be his final day of racing in Britain, Dettori rode Trawlerman to victory in the
Long Distance Cup before completing a double on King of Steel in the
Champion Stakes at Ascot on British Champions' Day on 21 October 2023. He also watched as
Queen Camilla unveiled a statue of him at the racecourse. In December 2023 he moved to California and had ridden six winners within two weeks. His first Grade 1 win of his stay in California came in March 2024, when he rode Newgate, trained by Baffert, to victory in the
Santa Anita Handicap. In November 2025, Dettori announced that his rides in the
2025 Breeders' Cup would be his last in the US, and that he would retire after a tour of South America. He rode winners in Argentina and Uruguay before ending his career with a win on Bet You Can in the Grande Premio Estado do Rio De Janeiro, at the
Gavea racecourse in
Rio de Janeiro on 1 February 2026. "Racing has been my life", he said. ==TV appearances==