Bullet Train flies flag for Henry Cecil
As comebacks rate it might not quite be up there with Lazarus but Henry Cecil is back in the big time. And very welcome he is too.
Five years ago Henry Cecil seemed to be fighting a losing battle in his career as a trainer. The days when he was champion trainer 10 times, with 23 Classic winners to his name, appeared to be long over the horizon and Cecil’s lowest point seemed to be in 2005 when he trained just 12 winners and finished 97th in the trainers' championship.
However, while the obituaries for his career were being penned, Cecil was faced with a more brutal danger on the discovery of stomach cancer. The fight for life continues and the man who was often regarded a highly-strung genius has shown a different side; that of a battler.
All of which simply adds to his public appeal. The seemingly effortless nature of his success – which merely hid an almost slavish dedication to his horses - made him a hit with racegoers, almost regardless of whether they backed the stream of winners that came from his Warren Place stables, his home since 1976. Now they are willing on the underdog, albeit one of a pedigree nature.
Through it all Cecil retains that degree of urbane detachment. Ask him question about plans for one of his horses and the reply is likely to be: “I don’t really know. What do you think?”
What most people think is that Cecil has finally come full circle. The victory for Light Shift in the Oaks three years ago was a bright light after years in the wilderness but he is now back fully in the limelight and stepping into it as he would one of his favourite, well-tailored jackets.
When Bullet Train won the Derby Trial at Lingfield Park last month Cecil was almost dismissive of the performance. This was partly because he was still coming to terms with the defeat of his filly Timepiece in the Oaks Trial just 40 minutes before.
The reason for Cecil’s quandary was that Timepiece had been beating Bullet Train on the gallops but now Cecil thinks that Bullet Train is worthy of his ticket for the Investec derby at Epsom on Saturday. “I think he’s a horse that’s improving,” Cecil said. “He’s very tough, he’ll get the trip and I think he’ll act on the course. Doesn’t do an awful lot at home, he’s quite laid-back and lazy but I think he’s coming on from race to race.
“I think, looking at the race at the moment, it’s quite open and he deserves to take his chance really. I’ve trained him with the Derby in mind, ever since he won at Lingfield, and you just feel your way and get him the best for the day. I think he’ll improve from the race but I hope he does enough to do himself justice.
“He stays so I’d rather have him handy, without cutting his throat. He doesn’t mind being up with the lead but you’ve got to do it gradually. That hill is a horror if you go too fast – you’ve just got to get a nice position and work your way into a good place coming into the straight.”
The only good place for a man like Cecil is the winner’s enclosure, which he has stood in four times after the Derby, and he quietly fancies his chances this time. “I don’t think Jan Vermeer beat an awful lot but he was impressive. So you’ve got to respect him and we don’t know about the others. Rewilding’s nice but maybe he’s slightly inexperienced. He won well, but what did he beat? There’s little question marks about everything – there’s probably question marks about my horse as well. But we’re very happy to take our chance.”
Stable jockey Tom Queally has decided that he will take his chance with Aviate in the Investec Oaks rather than Timepiece, Cecil’s other runner, who will be ridden by Eddie Ahern.
Timepiece, from the same family as Passage Of Time and Father Time, has long been regarded by Cecil as one of the best distaffs that he has trained for many years – a tip in itself really – and he still believes she is better than the two runs this season, in which she has been beaten both times. “I do think, rightly or wrongly, that that trial was a funny race,” he said of her Lingfield run. “They went too fast early on – I’d like to think anyway. I’m going to have her ridden completely differently this time. I think she has a lot of ability and is just getting it right really.”
Aviate showed her ability when she managed to win the Musidora Stakes at York last month from the least promising of positions. A hundred yards out Aviate was an unlucky loser, 50 yards out she was the moral victor and 10 yards out she had nailed Gold Bubbles to win by a head.
“She’s improving the whole time, she’s unbeaten and I think being Dansili out of that family you’ve got a cross of Nijinsky on the dam’s side and I think she stays,” Cecil said. “Looking at the race at York, they went slowly and she got into a pocket and she couldn’t race. Then they quickened up and, when she got out, she was slightly flat-footed and took a bit of time to pick herself up.
“I know they say it’s an open Oaks but I’ve got a lot of respect for about five. These two are in the five, I’m very happy with what I’ve got and I don’t really want to swap with anybody else.”
One of the great Warren Place traditions has been the flying of Cecil's Scottish ancestral coat of arms – three holly leaves denoting that his mother's family once looked after the royal forests, and a horn given to the family by Robert The Bruce for supporting him – from a flagpole after a Group One winner.
Few would begrudge if flag day made a comeback at Warren Place.
Henry Cecil’s Derby record: 1970 Approval (7th); 1973 Relay Race (6th); 1974 Arthurian (12th); 1976 Wollow (5th); 1977 Royal Plume (20th); 1979 Lyphards Wish (5th); 1980 Hello Gorgeous (6th); 1984 Claude Monet (13th); 1985 SLIP ANCHOR (won); 1985 Lanfranco (5th); 1986 Mashkour (3rd); 1986 Faraway Dancer (4th); 1987 REFERENCE POINT (won); 1987 Legal Bid (14th); 1990 Razeen (14th), River God (16th); 1991 Hokusai (7th); 1992 Twist And Turn (5th); 1993 COMMANDER IN CHIEF (won), Tenby (10th); 1994 King's Theatre (2nd); 1996 Dushyantor (2nd); 1996 Storm Trooper (15th); 1998 Sadian (7th), 1999 OATH (won); 2000 Beat Hollow (3rd), Wellbeing (5th); 2008 Kandahar Run (14th).
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