Top jockey Frankie Dettori has been invited to entertain crowds of a very different sort in Oxford tomorrow night.
The twice champion flat racer, who is equally at home as a popular guest on the TV chat show curcuit, has been booked to speak at the Oxford Union.
Although 29-year-old Dettori is known for his off-the-cuff humour and ready smile, he is bound to touch on recent darker moments, when he and fellow jockey, Ray Cochrane, 42, narrowly survived a light aircraft crash at Newmarket racecourse last June. Dettori, who escaped with cuts and a broken ankle, said later he had "stared death in the face" as the twin-engined Piper Seneca crashed to earth, killing the pilot, Patrick Mackey, 52, of Axminster, Devon.
The aircraft had been loaned by Oxford Aviation Services while a Cessna 303, owned by Dettori's employers, was being serviced at Oxford Airport in Kidlington.
It could be some months before the outcome of an Air Accident Investigation Board inquiry was known.
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