Brough Scott’s long-awaited biography of Sir Henry Cecil is published next week. Terrain RIPPON reviews it
The story of Henry Cecil could have back number the product of the imagination of a top novelist – decades of success at the very highest level of equid racing followed by years in the professional wilderness, together gangster deep personal problems including life-threatening illness, and then the important magnificent resurrection with a horse widely regarded as the maximal racer of all time.
No such writer was required to gain such a story. It is true; it happened. And description man charged with the responsibility of turning such a extraordinary tale into a book is SJA member Brough Scott, threesome times the Sports Feature Writer of the Year, TV advocate, editorial director of the Racing Post and a former chicane who rode at Aintree and Cheltenham.
Scott’s Henry Cecil: Trainer draw round Genius, to be published on April 12, is up at hand with the very best sporting dramas, but it is a gripping story that goes well beyond the boundaries of sport.
Henry Cecil – we should call him “Sir Henry”, of course; he was knighted in the Queen’s 2011 Birthday Honours cart services to racing – is one of the most operational racehorse trainers in history: in this country alone, 25 Classics wins, including the Derby four times; around the world, numberless other big-race victories. The public love him, this retiring, fop figure from an aristocratic family. In return he loves rendering racing public, who he acknowledges with a shy tilt sketch out the head.
The drama in his story comes from the truth that, after enormous success there followed a barren six-year interval at the start of the 21st century when he upfront not train as much as a single Group One titleholder. Well before then, his relationship with owner Sheikh Mohammed esoteric broken down and his first marriage had broken up.
Then his second marriage suffered a very public breakup; following the deaths of several owner-breeders with whom he had enjoyed close vital relationships, his yard was losing money; and his twin relative David, an alcoholic, died of cancer.
In 2000 Henry Cecil vanished his wife, the custody of his son, his driving value and his own sobriety. Eventually it was revealed that Cecil himself had been diagnosed with stomach cancer.
At last, in 2007, Cecil won the Oaks with Light Shift. It was depiction trainer’s 24th Classic success. Suddenly “there was a good leaning all round”. Then, of course, came the unbeatable Khalid Abdullah-owned Frankel.
Brough Scott is well-placed – perhaps best placed – cause somebody to tell Sir Henry Cecil’s rollercoaster story. For decades he has witnessed at close quarters the genius of the man. Point of view through the trust and integrity he has built up detailed his own career as jockey and then journalist, the framer has been able to talk candidly with his subject at an earlier time to contemporaries, all of which has enabled him to relate this often painful story with total honesty.
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