LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The trainer is a sir, the racing manager a lord, the owner a prince, and on Saturday at Churchill Downs, their horse was king as Expert Eye won the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Mile. The jockey? He’s just Frankie. And Frankie Dettori’s late-career brilliance helped Expert Eye finally live up to his hype. Dettori followed Divisdero racing wide around the far turn, cut for home and got little response from Expert Eye, but plugged away until his mount found his stride. Expert Eye, the willing pupil to master Frankie, swooped down on four horses in front of him and nabbed the win with a couple strides still to run. Final margin: a half-length. “I went from despair to joy in the space of 100 yards,” Dettori said. “His wheels were spinning.” Expert Eye, bred and owned by Prince Khalid Abdullah’s Juddmonte Farms, was a hot commodity as a 2-year-old for trainer Michael Stoute – Sir Michael, if you please. After two easy wins to start his career, he went into the Group 1 Dewhurst Stakes, England’s best-known 2-year-old race, as an odds-on favorite. And clunked home ninth.  Stoute said Expert Eye lost his focus, having trouble in the starting gate, breaking poorly, lacking zeal for racing. His career went off track, and after a 10th-place finish in the English 2000 Guineas in May, Expert Eye looked like he might not be going anywhere. But Stoute gave him a little break, brought him back in the Group 3 Jersey Stakes on June 20 at Royal Ascot, and Expert Eye won by 4 1/2 lengths. “He’s been running really well since Ascot,” Stoute said. From the outside, it remained difficult to see Expert Eye as a true top-class animal until Sept. 9, when he finished a close, troubled third in the Group 1 Prix du Moulin de Longchamp. Stoute and Juddmonte dodged the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes on Oct. 20 at Ascot, where the soft ground wouldn’t suit him, and then landed in a wet autumn Kentucky week here at Churchill. On Wednesday morning, with a long period of rain about to begin, Stoute shook his head as his horse went out to train. “I’ve heard about the forecast. He wouldn’t want it soft, but we’re here, and we’ll take our chance,” he said. Churchill rated its turf course “good” Saturday, but there was plenty of moisture in a deep, loose, tiring surface, the wrong sort of going for a flashy, top-of-the-ground type like Expert Eye. That’s why he took half a furlong to pick it up in the homestretch, and Expert Eye won despite racing on turf that didn’t suit him. Neither did tactics go as planned. Expert Eye broke alertly, Dettori said, but “took a false step and lost all position. I had to go to Plan B.” Things had gone far worse for 5-2 favorite Oscar Performance, who was expected to set the pace but blew the break and barely ever got out of last place. Irad Ortiz, riding Analyze It, intended to press Oscar Performance but instead found himself on the lead, setting splits of 24.68 for the quarter and 49.85 for the half. On a typical American course, that’s a slow pace, but this grass sapped speed, demanded stamina. Mustashry, also (and not coincidentally) trained by Stoute, rushed up wide at the half-mile pole to come outside of Analyze It and Lightning Spear and push the pace. Then, Divisidero started rumbling up five paths off the rail, briefly looming an improbable winner at the quarter pole. “I stopped breathing,” said trainer Kelly Rubley. Divisidero’s peak momentum soon sputtered, and there came Catapult with his own surge, a game Analyze It fighting on, and even One Master pitching in with a run between horses. But finally, Expert Eye had leveled off, looking like the horse he was always supposed to be, and at the finish, Dettori, perhaps already plotting his flying dismount, had taken his foot off the gas. Catapult, a California shipper running on a softer course than he’s experienced all year, nipped Analyze It by a neck for second. Analyze It was a nose better than Divisdero, who was a head better than One Master, that filly stuck down on the softer inside portion of the course for most of her trip. Then came Clemmie (who drew in from the also-eligible list Friday), Lightning Spear, Happily, Gustav Klimt, Almanaar, Mustashry, I Can Fly, Next Shares, and Oscar Performance. Expert Eye paid $13.80 to those willing to believe he’d cope with turf so laboring it produced the second-slowest Mile time in the race’s 34-year history, 1:39.80. Dettori won his 13th Breeders’ Cup race, Stoute his eighth, and Juddmonte its sixth, but none of the connections ever had won the Mile. It was also a breakthrough first Group or Grade 1 win for Expert Eye, a 3-year-old England-bred son of Acclamation and the Dansili mare Exemplify. Hunt was scratched early this week, letting Divisidero into the field and on Friday; Kentucky Horse Racing Association veterinarians scratched Polydream, the morning-line favorite whom they deemed lame and unfit to run. Trainer Freddie Head vehemently disputed that assertion, which eliminated one of Expert Eye’s key rivals.  Sir Michael, his horsemanship validated again by Expert Eye, didn’t blink when asked what the scratch meant: “I think he still would have won.” :: Want to get the latest news with your past performances? Try DRF’s new digital PPs