Frankie’s back

Nothing has been lost since William Powell Frith painted his Derby Day panorama in 1858: today, instead of the carriages and corseted courtesans, the acrobats and pickpockets, he could cram his canvas with scarlet-lipped ladies in shades posing for selfies; with men in impeccable morning dress coping no better with greasy hamburgers than Ed Miliband did with his bacon sandwich; and with strolling musicians, from a moustached one-man band to the smartly co-ordinated Dukebox Singers, a sextet of ladies bravely striking up their acapella harmonies against the racing hubbub. But this year it really was all about the racing.

Only two men in horse-racing history have been instantly recognisable to the public inside and outside their sport, no second name required: one is Lester Piggott and the other Frankie Dettori. Fittingly, it was Lester, the winner of nine Derbies, who gave a surprisingly quiet Frankie, who had triumphed at Epsom only once before, the reassurance he needed before this year’s race: ‘I wish I was on your horse,’ the maestro told him.