Frankie Dettori locked in talks as future with Gosden stable remains unclear

Frankie Dettori and his main employer, John Gosden, were still in talks over the rider’s position with the stable on Friday evening, amid continuing speculation that the 51-year-old rider’s hugely successful association with the yard could have run its course.

Rumours that Dettori’s seven-year spell as Gosden’s No 1 rider might be over have been circulating since Royal Ascot last week and seemed to be confirmed when the stable booked James Doyle and Robert Havling for its two runners at Newmarket on Saturday.

However, it then emerged that Dettori would meet Gosden and his son, Thady, who shares the licence at Clarehaven Stables in Newmarket, on Friday to discuss future riding plans at the yard.

Dettori rode Inspiral to an impressive victory in last Friday’s Coronation Stakes but also suffered a series of disappointments on Gosden-trained horses at the meeting. He struggled to remove a blindfold from Lord North at the start of the Prince of Wales’s Stakes on Wednesday, losing several lengths in the process, while the trainer was critical of his rides on both Stradivarius and Saga, in the Gold Cup and Britannia Handicap respectively, the following afternoon.

Gosden suggested that Dettori had “overcomplicated” his ride on Stradivarius, who was chasing a record-equalling fourth success in the Royal meeting’s showpiece event.

He also told reporters on Friday that the Queen’s colt Saga, who was beaten by a fast-diminishing head after Dettori was forced to wait for running room inside the final quarter-mile, “should have won” the next race on the card, 35 minutes before Dettori could finish only second on Reach For The Moon, also owned by the Queen, when long odds-on for the Hampton Court Stakes.

Dettori flew straight to