Frankie Dettori can die a happy man. He is a Derby winner at last. And even if he can number only one alongside Lester Piggott's nine, no one was counting yesterday afternoon at Epsom. It was as if every minor investment, every cheer for racing’s most recognisable figure had been channelled into one torrent of support as Authorized powered into the lead almost two furlongs from home and, in three giant strides, settled every single debate about Dettori’s worth. Somewhere along the road to Epsom, Dettori’s quest for immortality had become the nation’s quest too. Even the bookmakers had to smile at their own £50m misfortune.

But the 228th Derby, sponsored for the last time by Vodafone, was more than a memorial to a great jockey. Authorized, a strapping son of Montjeu, was trained to the minute by Peter Chapple-Hyam, for whom this was also a salvation. The surge of acceleration that took the hot favourite past the tiring Kid Mambo and disdainfully clear of a labouring field put him into the class of Derby winner reserved for very exclusive company.

Galileo and Motivator won with equal ease, but the sheer joy of Authorized’s performance thrilled even his jockey. By the line, Authorized had placed an effortless five lengths between him and Eagle Mountain, the most prominent of Aidan O’Brien’s eight runners. Aqaleem ran on into third for Richard Hills and Marcus Tregoning.

The beauty of whole tableau was that Dettori had plenty of time to savour the eradication of a very persistent demon. All week, he had been troubled by doubts, by a fall at Goodwood that left him with an injured knee and by a desperate shortage of winners. Dettori is a rider who thrives on attention and morale; two defeats on the undercard had heightened his suspicion and a close afternoon on the Downs made the lungs gasp for breath. Dire predictions accompanied his every move, not least the possibility of tactical teamwork by Coolmore, whose eight runners could have made life very difficult for a man not widely liked down Ballydoyle way.

As it happened, nothing from Coolmore could have lived with Authorized on the Downs yesterday. “Keep it simple,” was the limit of the trainer’s instructions. “You’re on the best horse. Ride it like you own it.” “I wish I did,” replied Dettori later. Dettori followed his orders to the letter. These have been difficult days for Dettori, a time when a true champion reaches into his soul and finds an inner strength. So many things might have gone wrong, so much went right. “My heart stopped, the whole world stopped and in the final furlong I thought the whole world was shouting at me.” They were, all 100,000 of them lining this historic piece of downland.

For the trainer, there were equally emphatic emotions. Chapple-Hyam has known ups and downs to match the contours of Epsom in his remarkable career, including being sacked from the role of private trainer to his father-in-law, Robert Sangster, and a miserable spell in Hong Kong. He has trained Classic winners in Rodrigo de Triano and, in 1992, won the Derby with Dr Devious.

But memories do not pay the bills and Chapple-Hyam’s return to the ranks of the public trainers at the historic St Galien Stables in Newmarket represented a dramatic, perhaps final, throw of the dice. Yesterday as he charged like a bull elephant out of the weighing-room, he was bursting with understandable pride. He might also be the first trainer in the history of the world’s greatest race to celebrate by eating his racecard.

“We were further back than we wanted to be perhaps,” said the 44-year-old son of a grocer from Leamington Spa. “But it was a perfect ride in a perfect race on a perfect horse.” There was nothing much more to say. Chapple-Hyam’s heart must have been further into his mouth than his racecard at the sluggish start from the favourite. Only six were behind him climbing Tattenham Hill through the first quarter of the race. But Dettori did not panic and, despite picking up places down the hill, he emerged still with work to do at the bottom as Kid Mambo briefly slipped the field and went four lengths clear under Joe Fanning.

Dettori, though, had already felt the surge of power in the quarters of the Montjeu colt and knew the race was as good as done. “Just keep it simple,” the trainer’s words reverberated through the mind of the 36-year-old Italian, whose father Gianfranco was watching from the grandstand. And then it was done and all the nonsense, all the expert predictions and the betting slips which favoured cynicism over fairytale were strewn to the wind and left in the slipstream of a great horse at full speed.

It was some sight, a treasured memory not just for Dettori but all who were privileged to be present, and the numbers of those claiming to be here might yet swell to reach the millions in years to come. The preliminaries were dominated not by the favourite, easing in the market all the time, but by the wait for the Coolmore battalions. It was like what might have descended over the OK Corral when Wyatt Earp rode into town. Round and round they strode until just 22 minutes before post time came the rumbling of hooves and a multi-million pound chorus line of thoroughbreds.

In order, Anton Chekhov, Acapulco, Mahler, Eagle Mountain, Yellowstone, Archipenko, Soldier of Fortune and Admiralofthefleet, winners of 16 races in all and as an emphatic statement of power and intent as a march past in Red Square in the days of the cold war.

Quite how cool Dettori could be in such surroundings only he knew. Quickly out of the weighing-room, quite and tense, the three times champion approached his moment of destiny with two seconds on the day – one a beaten odds-on shot – and without the feeling of winning for nearly two weeks. A look at the market would hardly have calmed the Italian’s taut nerves.

Mahler, a 50-1 shot in the morning, backed into half that price on the basis of some expert opinions in the morning papers and the sneaking admiration of his trainer, and Archipenko, who finished last of the 17 runners. was the subject of late money. This was not Coolmore’s day. We should have known.

In the weighing-room, Dettori knelt on the scales and thrust his hands in the air in supplication to the racing gods. One of his biggest bearhugs was reserved for Saeed bin Suroor, trainer for Shaiekh Mohammed’s Godolphin, who had sportingly released their stable jockey for those precious two minutes and 34 seconds.

There was only one story at Epsom yesterday. For the second day in a row, the Downs became the stage in a true theatre of dreams.