Frankie Dettori and Enable aim for 'the impossible' Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe treble

Frankie Dettori is a veteran of a remarkable 30 stagings of the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe - the 48-year-old has missed just one, because of injury, since 1988 and he has won six - but he admits he has never seen a build-up quite like this before.

Interest, Dettori says, in both super-mare Enable and himself as they chase - as hot favourites - an unprecedented third success in European flat racing's grandest prize has ensured it's been "a bit of a circus".

"If we are not going to make a fuss of a horse of a lifetime like that, then we are never going to," Dettori told BBC Sport.

"If I tell you that I am not nervous then I'd be lying. Ask Steve Redgrave when he was going for [Olympic] gold number five how he felt - we are trying to scale a mountain that has never been scaled before, we are going to try 'the impossible'.

"And it's no gimme. All the best horses in Europe are going to take you on. Everything has got to go right, she's got to perform at her best and I've got to make sure I don't mess up - apart from that, it's easy."

• Enable drawn nine for Arc record bid

On the whole, 2019 has been reasonably straightforward for Dettori, for Enable and for John Gosden and the team at Clarehaven stables in Newmarket, who train the five-year-old mare for Saudi prince Khalid Abdullah and his Juddmonte Farms operation which bred her.

And it's not only been with Enable. Gosden and co have been striding across the flat racing stage in Britain, Ireland and France.

Among the most notable scorers have been Stradivarius, again the season's outstanding long-distance performer; Anapurna, who took the Epsom Oaks; Too Darn Hot, successful in two Group One races before injury curtailed his career; Star Catcher, winner of the Irish Oaks and France's Prix Vermeille; and, with a storming victory at Doncaster, Logician kept his clean sheet - now five wins from five starts - in the St Leger.

Enable herself - flat racing's biggest name since unbeaten champion Frankel, also owned by Khalid Abdullah - has enjoyed much smoother progress than in 2018.

Because of injury and illness, she was said to be only 80% ready when narrowly becoming the eighth horse in the Arc's 98-year-history to record two victories.

This time, however, she's travelling to the race's home at ParisLongchamp for what is expected to be her swansong, off the back of impressive wins in the Eclipse Stakes at Sandown, the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot - after a spectacular duel with the now retired Crystal Ocean - and in the Yorkshire Oaks at York.

Overall, her race record stands at 13 from 14, the victories including the Arc/Breeders Cup Turf double in 2018.

And, talking to her jockey, it's clear that everything to do with the daughter of the stallion Nathaniel and their Paris date with history has been all-consuming.

Back on Logician's big afternoon in mid-September, it was striking that even while posing, all smiles, in the oversized cap given to the winning rider of the final classic of the season, Dettori already had the future on his mind, saying: "We'll enjoy this moment, and then get back to the drawing board to get ready for the Arc."

Frankie Dettori has won the Arc - Europe's richest horserace - six times including on Golden Horn in 2015

Indeed the Italian-born three-time champion jockey has compared his short association with Enable to a love affair.

"I cried at York and I'm probably going to cry again," he said.

"She's taken me to places emotionally that no other horse has taken me, all around the world, and I'd be lying to say to you that I don't love her - of course I do love her."

In terms of Dettori's own long and successful career, it seems to me that being such a part of the story of probably flat racing's greatest female equine athlete as she goes for a significant slice of the sport's history means this is perhaps his own biggest day.

In response, he said: "It goes without saying that I've ridden some great horses, but her CV is incomparable to anything else that I rode - just look at it.

"But this day is not about me, it's more for the sport and more for Enable, and for her whole finale - because if she does it, she will be immortal."