Dettori to ride for Aga Khan in Derby

Thursday 24 May 2018, 8:30am

Frankie Dettori has been called up to ride Hazapour in the Derby at Epsom for owner the Aga Khan and trainer Dermot Weld.

Dettori has won the world's premier Classic twice, with Authorized in 2007 and Golden Horn in 2015, with Weld's sole success coming through Harzand two years ago.

Harzand was the latest of the Aga Khan's five winners with his first Shergar in 1981.

"It's a great honour to ride for the Aga Khan. He is steeped in history with the race and has so many good memories," Dettori told Press Association Sport.

"It is a great honour to wear his colours. He is a nice horse coming into the race and he put in a good performance in the Derby Trial at Leopardstown."

That victory in the Group Three Derrinstown Stud Derby Trial secured a place in next week's Derby line-up for Hazapour, who is from the same family as Harzand.

Weld is currently without the services of stable jockey Pat Smullen who was diagnosed with a tumour in March.

"I'm very excited, but my thoughts go out to Pat Smullen. I've got the ride in unfortunate circumstances," Dettori said.

"I know Pat very well and he is a good friend of mine and we've been keeping in touch and I'm sure he will give me help about the horse.

"The Aga Khan's breeding operation is steeped in history and this horse has got the right pedigree for it. The combination of Dermot Weld and the Aga Khan is amazing and the history they have in the Derby is amazing."

– PAA

Latest News

Prime Thoroughbreds - We have a Host of Leaders in our Team

Tuesday, 29 June 2021

Prime Thor­ough­bred’s cur­rent rac­ing team is putt­ing to­gether quite a re­cord. We have 22 hors­es that have raced in our team at pre­sent. Six­teen of th­ese are win­n­ers in­clud­ing the Stakes win­n­ing trio Ru­bisa­ki, Fituese and Xtreme­time with Miss Di­vine Em and Miss In Charge run­n­ing 4th in Stakes races. This sees a stakes win­n­er to win­n­er ra­tio of 18.75% with a stake’s per­formed to win­n­er ra­tio of 31.25%. Th­ese are ex­cep­tio­n­al fig­ures.   More »

Freedmans land maiden Group One win

Saturday, 27 February 2021

Un­der-rat­ed fil­ly For­bid­den Love has emerged as an au­tumn car­ni­val smokey with a bril­liant per­for­mance to win the Sur­round Stakes at Rand­wick.  More »

Capriccio completes Damian Lane treble

Saturday, 27 February 2021

In a big day for coun­try-trained hors­es, War­r­nam­bool fil­ly Capric­cio has tak­en out the In­glis Dash for Daniel Bow­man.  More »

More news headlines »