Godolphin’s new star jockey is the next Frankie Dettori

Billy ‘The Kid’ Loughnane can be the new ‘face of racing’ and the next Frankie Dettori after signing a retained jockey deal with Godolphin.

The 20-year-old champion jockey has agreed to ride in Sheikh Mohammed’s royal blue silks starting at the Dubai Carnival in December 2026.

He will be contracted alongside William Buick as one of two retained riders for the global operation.

Loughnane won the British champion jockey title in 2026 after a standout season that included a Group 1 victory in the 2,000 Guineas aboard Bow Echo.

He also won a Breeders’ Cup race in 2025 on Rebel’s Romance — his first top-level win in the Godolphin colors.

The comparison to Frankie Dettori has followed Loughnane since his apprentice days.

Dettori was Godolphin’s first and most successful No. 1 rider, winning the champion jockey title at age 23 — three years older than Loughnane is now.

Dettori also became a crossover star, appearing as a team captain on BBC’s “A Question of Sport” and reaching a weekly audience of around 8 million viewers.

“I want to ride more Group One winners,” Loughnane said last month when asked about his 2027 ambitions.

Hugh Anderson of Godolphin announced the signing on Nov. 4, 2026, calling Loughnane “the most exciting young jockey riding in Europe.”

Anderson added: “Billy Loughnane is an outstanding rider with a great future in our sport. We are thrilled that he has chosen our silks at this early stage in his career.”

Loughnane responded: “I am absolutely ecstatic that Godolphin has given me this opportunity. It is a huge honour to become a retained jockey for one of the best racing operations in the world.”

He thanked Sheikh Mohammed for the chance to ride “his outstanding horses at the highest possible competitive level.”

The Guardian’s reporting frames Loughnane as a potential successor to Dettori as a “crossover” talent with the charisma to build a public profile beyond racing.

Loughnane is described as engaging and articulate, with a showman’s instincts and an ability to engage with the crowd.

He takes as much obvious pleasure from a big-race winner as the fans cheering him back to the winner’s enclosure.

But the racing, sporting and media landscapes have changed completely since Dettori’s heyday.

Dettori had the advantage of a weekly platform on national BBC television that no longer exists in the fragmented world of social media and YouTube.

Loughnane, however, could become the first racing star of the TikTok era.

His new contract with Godolphin should soon see him competing at the highest level regularly.

Even if Loughnane does not claim the lion’s share of the best rides as soon as 2027, his trajectory within the operation seems clear.

For Godolphin — an operation conceived as a soft-power advertisement for Dubai — the combination of prodigious talent and easy likeability fits the brand ideally.

Loughnane himself has been swatting away Dettori comparisons for years.

“He is not the next Dettori,” The Guardian notes.

“He is the first Billy Loughnane.”

Kieren Fallon, a former champion jockey, praised Loughnane as “confident, but not cocky” and called him “dedicated and gifted” after the Godolphin appointment.

William Buick, who has ridden for Godolphin with distinction for over 10 years, will continue as one of two retained jockeys.

Anderson made clear: “William Buick has ridden for us with distinction for over 10 years and we are very happy that he will continue as one of our two retained jockeys.”

The question of whether Buick’s role will diminish over time remains open.

Loughnane’s contract puts him on a path that could eventually make him the operation’s No. 1 rider.