Palatinate’s shareholder Frankie Dettori races to meet travel industry elite ahead of Cheltenham Festival
To Sexy Fish, where luxury holiday maker Palatinate Group held its 10th anniversary celebrations ahead of next week's Cheltenham Festival.
The great and good of luxury travel came out to toast Palatinate’s 10th birthday, from execs at lastminute.com to three-time champion jockey Frankie Dettori, who has just bought a stake in the company. The firm’s founder Ross Marshall was so grateful to have him on board, he only ordered Italian wines, to honour the jockey’s roots.
Despite Marshall pleading that the party was strictly leisure only, that meant only one thing to our guests: business. The Capitalist’s conversation with Peter Burrell, the chief exec of Dettori’s management firm, was cut short when he received a call from Ladbrokes’ head of PR Mike Dillon who, naturally, was already at the restaurant. Burrell dragged Dillon and Dettori from their tables for a covert chat ahead of the races.
Were they discussing the fixtures at Cheltenham, or internship opportunities? Aside from equestrian life, the only other thing on well-heeled Londoner’s minds seems to be work experience. A report in the Evening Standard yesterday notes that Notting Hill Prep School has offerd its pupils work placements as rare as hen’s teeth: an internship with adventurer Ben Fogle, a day in the life of Laura Bailey and a tech experience with the makers of Candy Crush to name a few.
Clearly feeling the pressure from the capital’s private-school set, Dettori pulled his own teenaged daughter out of school so she could briefly crash the party and shake hands with execs and national media reps. Dettori was so hasty, the poor kid didn't even have time to change out of her school uniform before being herded around the table.
Does a career in PR await?