‘Genius’ of Cecil can be marked by York win for Stipulate

On Macmillan cancer charity day, an annual event which has raised more than £5.5m since its inception 43 years ago, it will be impossible to miss the black armbands on the jockeys’ silks in tribute to Stipulate’s legendary trainer Sir Henry Cecil.

Britain’s greatest-ever trainer, the 70-year-old succumbed on Tuesday to stomach cancer, a debilitating illness which he fought with good humour, bravery and modesty while also masterminding the career of the phenomenal Frankel – the world’s best racehorse.

Though his passing had been silently feared by those who had witnessed Cecil’s decline in health, his death prompted emotional tributes at racecourses across the country, including a minute’s silence before racing at York yesterday in which Joe Mulhall – who used to train his horses on the Knavesmire – was also remembered. This act of remembrance will be repeated today.

Yet Cecil, who owned Cliff Stud at Helmsley, will always be synonymous with York. Home may have been his Warren Place stables overlooking Newmarket – but he always appeared to be at his most happy when saddling big-race winners on the Knavesmire, and doffing his trilby to the crowd as he accepted yet another prize.

His unprecedented run of success at York began with Approval’s victory in the 1970 Dante – the first of nine victories in this Epsom Derby trial – and ended when Cecil, pencil-thin because of chemotherapy, defied doctors to watch Frankel turn the competitive Juddmonte International into a one-horse race last August.

As ‘three cheers for Sir Henry’ echoed around the winner’s enclosure, many were visibly shocked by their hero’s painfully thin appearance – one reason why Aidan O’Brien, the record-breaking Irish trainer, made a point of waiting to watch the emotional post-race presentations. “The greatest trainer and the greatest horse,” he told this correspondent.

Few disagree – especially those, like York chairman Teddy Grimthorpe, who also had the privilege of working with Cecil on a daily basis in his capacity as racing manager to Frankel’s owner Prince Khalid Abdullah, who heads Juddmonte’s worldwide breeding empire.

“I first came across Henry Cecil on the Knavesmire, it must have been in the late 60s or early 70s at the outset of his career,” Lord Grimthorpe told the Yorkshire Post. “The current senior steward, Nicholas Wrigley, and myself followed this rather snappily dressed chap around the racecourse. We had no idea who he was. We thought he must be interesting, but found out who it was later. Little did I know that he would become such an integral part of my professional life.”

Grimthorpe, who grew up at his family’s ancestral home Westow Hall near York, had regular dealings with Cecil in his career as a successful bloodstock agent, but he only began to appreciate the trainer’s genius after he took up the Juddmonte role in 1999 and saw the maestro’s handling of horses at close quarters.

“The atmosphere at Warren Place has always been a very happy one,” said Grimthorpe. “Henry had a very easy way to do things, he wasn’t a stand-by-your-beds man. He had a very good rapport with his staff, as any successful person must have.

“Also his patience. When he was giving advice to a young trainer, he said they needed three things – patience, patience, patience. I always found it reassuring that the right thing was being done.”

It was a mantra, said Grimthorpe, that Cecil still followed during the dark days of his life when he was tormented by the loss of owners, upheaval in his colourful private life and the death of his twin brother David from pancreatic cancer in 2000.

They were challenging times – Cecil’s 12 winners from 102 runners in 2005 was a meagre return for a man with a record 25 English Classic victories to his name – and then he, too, was diagnosed with cancer.

“When things started to fall apart at the seams for well-documented reasons, then owners leave, staff leave and it is a sad place,” said Grimthorpe.

“Prince Khalid never lost faith with Henry. His mantra was ‘once a genius, always a genius’. He stuck with him, as did Maria Niarchos, and it was wonderful that these two owners provided him with his comeback Group One winners.

“The Prince’s Passage Of Time won the Criterium de Saint-Cloud in 2006, and Light Shift won the Epsom Oaks in 2007. It was great justification for the loyalty shown by these wonderful owners – he was down to 30-odd horses, on the edge of going out of business and then diagnosed with cancer.

“The most extraordinary thing about Henry was that he had an absolute iron will. There was never, ever an ounce of self-pity and there was never a moment when you felt that he wasn’t going to get over it.

“He had been written off so many times before. He believed so we all believed. It was sad to see him looking so poorly but he had us all believing...”

And then Cecil’s racing resurgence reached new levels of greatness in 2010 when he unleashed a precocious horse by the name of Frankel onto the racetrack for the first time.

The horse’s foot-perfect, unblemished record speaks for itself. Frankel retired last autumn unbeaten after winning each of his 14 races in a career which transcended sport, just as the aristocratic Cecil’s career had captivated royalty and the 50p each-way punter in equal measure.

The undoubted highlight came last August, the superhorse’s 13th race, when racing’s equine superstar, a one-time tearaway, won York’s Juddmonte International after stepping up in trip to a mile-and-a-quarter for the first time. It would not have been possible, says Grimthorpe, without Frankel being a handled by a trainer touched by “genius” and “greatness”.

“His handling of Frankel was perhaps his finest achievement; he always had a very firm idea of where and when he would run,” he explained.

“He understood how to plan, and to space Frankel’s races accordingly, so he could produce those stellar performances that we all cherished. Everyone always wanted more but people wouldn’t have seen those electrifying bursts of speed and that huge stride. If he had stacked up a lot of races, particularly as a two-year-old, a lot of people may have been shortchanged.

“I’d seen Henry before York so I knew what he looked like. I said that he did not need to come, but he said ‘I am coming’ in a very firm, if soft voice. The reception he got was just extraordinary.”

An interested observer from America was Steve Cauthen – the ‘Kentucky Kid’ who dominated British racing in the 1980s after teaming up with Cecil.

Both enjoyed famous successes on the Knavesmire because Cecil recognised the importance of the Dante and Ebor meetings – the great Sir Noel Murless, the father of Cecil’s first wife Julie, trained at Hambleton Lodge.

“He was such a great guy – a genius,” said Cauthen. “The first year, 1985, we had an amazing run when Slip Anchor won the Derby and Oh So Sharp won the Triple Crown for fillies. He was a super intelligent guy and really knew how to place his horses. He did a perfect job in making Frankel the horse he was.”

Today Stipulate will be saddled by Cecil’s widow Julie whose brother Richard Guest, the former Grand National-winning jockey, now trains at Wetherby.

Buoyed by her stable’s two winners at Nottingham on Thursday 48 hours after her tragic loss, she was determined to take out a training licence, says Grimthorpe, so the “Cecil name” can be represented at Royal Ascot.

Stipulate has always threatened to be a top-class horse. A model of consistency – placed in his last five starts – it would be ironic if he finally got his nose in front at the end of the Ian and Kate Hall Macmillan Ganton Stakes.

“Its close proximity to Sir Henry’s death makes it even more poignant,” added Grimthorpe.