Exclusive: ‘Genius’ of Cecil may yet secure another Dante title

It is because Cecil, according to the former champion jockey Steve Cauthen, is an “absolute genius” at assessing a horse’s qualities, and the top races that they should target, in order to prolong their careers.

Indeed, it is a measure of horse racing’s affection for the veteran handler, who has a stud at Helmsley, that the public would not begrudge him if World Domination denied The Queen’s well-regarded Carlton House in today’s Derby trial. He is that revered.

It would also be a phenomenal training performance. This is a striking colt that did not race as a two-year-old because of injury – and then hacked up at Newbury on his racecourse day in a performance that was eclipsed by the aforementioned Frankel’s Greenham victory.

Many regarded the unbeaten Frankel as a Derby horse after winning the Newbury before his uncompromising win in the 2000 Guineas when he led from start to finish in a performance that was as emphatic as Cauthen and Cecil’s first Derby success on Slip Anchor in 1985.

Yet, given the equine superstar’s electrifying speed, Frankel is being wisely saved for the St James Palace Stakes – the champion race for one-milers at Royal Ascot – before a possible tilt at York’s richest race, the Juddmonte International, in August.

“Henry has always been a great trainer, a genius. My days with him in the 1980s were very special – 10 classics in five or six years. An amazing time,” said Cauthen, speaking to the Yorkshire Post from his stud farm in his native Kentucky, America.

“He was great to work with. He did his thing and he let me do mine. It worked. Instinctively, we just knew what each other was doing. Why did it work? He just knew when to run a horse, which big races to go for, which ones to miss. He had a natural feel for a horse and its qualities. Everything is geared, from his part, to getting the most out of a horse.

“He has a had a few lean years, but it can happen to anyone. It’s great that he is back and his owners, like Prince Khalid Abdullah (owner of Frankel and World Domination) stuck by him. You don’t become a bad trainer overnight. If you haven’t got the horses, you can’t carry a 1,200lb horse in a race.

“I’ve watched Frankel and World Domination. He’s assessed both and he’s doing entirely the right thing in missing the Derby with Frankel. That horse will be at his best over a mile, the Derby could ruin his chances of greatness.”

Few things surprise Cauthen, a teenage phenomenon who won America’s Triple Crown on Affirmed as an 18-year-old before a glittering career in Britain that was only curtailed because he could no longer win the unequal daily struggle against his weight.

An American Hall of Fame sportsman whose boyish looks earned him the sobriquet ‘The Kid’, the 51-year-old is, still, the last jockey to win the Triple Crown in his homeland.

The same legacy is also applicable here – Cauthen and Cecil were the unbeaten combination who guided Oh So Sharp to fillies Triple Crown glory in 1985 in the 1000 Guineas, Epsom Oaks and St Leger at Doncaster.

Yet Cauthen’s two Derby triumphs aboard Slip Anchor, and then Reference Point two years later, remain the defining moments of his stellar career, and are testament to Cecil’s foresight which, he says, is the trainer’s greatest attribute.

Slip Anchor, a relaxed horse, prepared for Epsom by running in Lingfield’s Derby trial – a course whose undulations were more challenging than those encountered in the Classic, says Cauthen. It did not matter – the three-year-old was a runaway Epsom victor, who had the race won before the descent to Tattenham Corner.

The contrast with Reference Point, said the jockey, could not have been greater. “He had to go to the Dante for his Derby trial. I did not mind. I’d won the Dante before on Claude Monet and York has always been my favourite racecourse in the world – the town, the people, the track – everything. The Dante has always been the best Derby trial and I’m glad it still is,” said Cauthen who is still the only rider to win the Epsom, Irish and Kentucky Derbies.

“It just suited Reference Point who liked to gallop from the front. York was ideal – and it confirmed that he was a Derby contender. The problem was that I knew he would not handle Epsom. We looked to make all and it worked, we won in spite of Tattenham Corner.

“They were different horses – Slip Anchor hurt himself in a box after Epsom, or something, and never won again while I won a Leger on Reference Point. Great, great memories.”

Cauthen, who combines his farm duties with looking after his three daughters and “getting grey hair trying to keep up with them,” believes Classic contenders need as much racecourse experience as possible.

Yet, if any trainer can win the Dante with a racehorse enjoying its second start, and then go on and land the blue riband race, then it is Henry Cecil.

“It must be that royal blue blood in him,” jokes Cauthen who has no regrets about retiring in hs 30s rather than prolonging the agony of fasting to make the weight on horses – despite the big race wins that this cost him.

“No, just look at the number of times a horse wins a race unexpectedly and then look at the trainer’s name in the racecard. When this happens, it is usually Henry Cecil. And there’s your reason.

“He’s right more often than he is wrong.”