If you had closed your eyes and allowed your ears to be your guide, the roar would have told you. Only one jockey and one horse could have made that sound.

Authorized made his decisive play down the centre of the track, a couple of furlongs out, and the noise rose to meet him, like a fanfare.

All week this had been a one-jockey, one-horse, one-story, one-result Derby and for once the reality had not disappointed the fantasy.

Frankie Dettori hurried his mount to the finish line, stretching clear, adding mutilation to a field of top-class colts that were already dead behind him. It was as if, after 15 years of waiting for his first Derby, he could not tolerate being delayed for another second.

And, then in his moment of greatest triumph, he concealed the emotions that are always his first point of engagement with the outside world.

There was no exuberant gesture as he passed the winning post, no gushing expression of relief, no public unwinding of the tension that has gripped him for weeks. Instead he bowed his head for a second, almost brushing Authorized’s mane, and kept the moment for himself.

The reserve and the solitude did not last for long. A phalanx of press photographers was stretched across the track at the point where the winner was supposed to turn left into Epsom’s cubicle of a winner’s enclosure.

But Dettori departed from the protocol and began to ride back down the finishing straight, past the grandstands on his left and the open-top buses massed on the Downs to his right. The jockey and his public needed a moment together too.

There is no other jockey currently in the sport for whom that gesture would have been appropriate. Racing can often seem a self-contained world with its peculiar idiom and complex terms of reference but Dettori transcends all that and connects racing to the mainstream life of the nation and the wider world of sport.

He is the guy on A Question of Sport, the guy with the chain of restaurants, the guy with the range of men’s grooming products, the guy with the flying dismount and the ready laugh in a multi-billion pound industry dominated by so many serious business faces.

And for all his vaulting success as a jockey around the world, his failure to win this race had become one of the headline stories of his career.

Everybody in racing knew how desperate he was to win, everybody in racing knew how tortured he had been in the days leading up to the yesterday’s race because Frankie would feel no desire to suppress those feelings in public and hide behind a mask.

All of that is bound up with his appeal: here is an extraordinary sportsman with everyday vulnerabilities and doubts.

It was by no means a smooth ride at Epsom yesterday but Dettori was on the best horse and that thought was enough to cultivate his patience and bide his time.

“It was a long two-and-a-half minutes,” he said. “They went a serious gallop. Peter Chapple-Hyam [trainer] said just ride it like you own the horse.

“I counted the horses in front of me and I think there were about 10 and I said ‘well, if they keep this gallop up it won’t be a problem’ because sometimes in Derbys they tend to pull them up halfway and that would have been a problem. But they kept the gallop throughout.

“At about two-and-a-half furlongs I had a peep backwards underneath my arm to see if anyone was stalking me, but I could see daylight so I only had to worry about the horses in front.

“I got him balanced, got to the leaders at the two-furlong marker, stayed with them for a bit, asked him for his effort and he stretched away.”

In 14 Derbys before yesterday Dettori had only been in the frame three times and he says there was only once when he had the fleeting elation of thinking he was about to win - on Tamure 12 years ago.

When he reflected on the Derbys he had lost in the past the dominant memory was being “dead with five furlongs to go” and the feeling of emptiness that followed.

The Derby came only once a year and another 12 months was a long time to live with the longing, squatting in the back of his mind. Yesterday, though, the feeling came and it was here to stay. He pushed his mount to the front and in a matter of strides Authorized had put the race to bed in the style of exceptional colt.

“When I passed the furlong marker the whole world stopped, my heart stopped, I just couldn’t believe that I was going to win and this was going to be my moment,” said Dettori. “I felt like I was dreaming because everything went so smooth and I didn’t expect that. I expected a dog fight battle but it was like an oil painting - it was beautiful and smooth and great. I still can’t believe that I won.

“It was like the whole world was shouting over the last 100 yards. I was full of emotion. I had to pinch myself.”

Because he was trapped so wide on the track, Dettori was asked if he had considered nipping up the rail and taking his chance on getting a split. Dettori knew, though, that this was not the day to be a dare devil; he could be a hero without putting his head on the block.

“I’m not that crazy,” he laughed. “I’m not like Kieren [Fallon], I’ve got less bottle than him.

You’re on the best horse, pull him out, don’t be complicated and off you go and win.”

Dettori is a popular figure in the weighing room too and you could see that there was not a trace of envy in the embraces of his peers.

In the days leading up the race the ribbing had been merciless, but Dettori would have expected and accepted it; the weighing room is no place for sensitive creatures. He was asked about the reception from the vanquished jockeys behind and immediately he was on the counter offensive.

“None of them could get to me. I could hear them say ‘well done’ but they were all a furlong behind. It just goes so quick. I didn’t know whether to cry or to be happy. I haven’t had a chance to sit down and have a good proper cry really.”

Chapple-Hyam said: “He [Authorized] has never let me down and has a serious turn of foot. He travels and you can do most things with him.

“Frankie was probably a bit further back than I wanted him to be but Authorized has got so much class. He’s a very good horse.”

The finishing touch to Frankie’s career

- Yesterday’s success was Dettori’s 12th Classic victory - he has won the 1,000 Guineas twice, the 2,000 Guineas twice, the Oaks three times and the St Leger four times

- He has also won the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe four times, the King George four times, three Japan Cups and five Breeders’ Cups

- He memorably rode seven winners on a single day at Ascot in September 1996

- Dettori has never been one to follow convention - he and renowned chef Marco Pierre-White created Frankie’s Bar and Grill chain, which now owns four restaurants, and he has also put his name to a range of tinned tomatoes that sell around 500,000 cans a year

- He emulated former jockey Willie Carson by becoming a team captain on A Question Of Sport, but decided to quit and focus on his riding

- When he appeared on Desert Island Discs he chose records by Madonna, Robbie Williams and Simply Red

- In 2000 he was involved in a plane crash in which the pilot, Patrick Mackey, lost his life. He was pulled from the wreckage by fellow jockey Ray Cochrane, who was one of the first to congratulate him on his victory yesterday