Sir Henry Cecil: The beloved, quirky champion trainer
There is a heartwarming picture of the legendary trainer Sir Henry Cecil looking into the eyes of his champion racehorse Frankel. It is a look of love.
Cecil loved horses, racing, and the people who followed the sport. And they loved him back.
That is why to those who followed an extraordinary career, his death aged 70 after fighting stomach cancer feels almost like the loss of a family member.
Ten champion trainer titles, 75 Royal Ascot wins and four victories in the Derby at Epsom tell only a small part of the story.
The 70-year-old slumped from training king to also-ran, and bounced back again.
During a terrible few years he went through adivorce from his second wife, the death of his alcoholic twin brother David, drink-driving ban and a fall from the top of the training perch.
He failed to land a Group One race at the top level between 2001 and 2005, and plummeted to 94th in the trainers' list.
In February 2007, Cecil revealed a cancer battle which he quietly fought over six years and somehow pushed to one side while resurrecting his career with high-class horses such as Twice Over and Midday.
"With the death of my brother, financial things, divorces, I never thought that was the end of me. I just thought I can't be an also-ran," he said in aBBC interview in 2011.
"I don't want to be that pathetic. When I hear people on Newmarket Heath saying 'There's Henry Cecil, he should have retired years ago', those sort of things hurt me."
Like many a champion, Cecil was galvanised by the doubters and thenalong came Frankel, named after the famed US trainer Bobby Frankel, and he had an equine partner with which to forge new successes.
Perhaps Cecil knew this was to be his last, and greatest, partnershipand he carefully nurtured the colt, resisting the temptation of going for the helter-skelter stamina test of the Derby after a whirlwind win in the 2,000 Guineas.
Fourteen consecutive wins followed for his loyal owner Prince Khalid Abdulla and Irish jockey Tom Queally before the horse officially rated the world's greatest was retired to stud in October 2012.
Frankel was the horse of a lifetime, and may well have helped prolong Cecil's own life. The wonder horse gave him another reason to live.
In Flat racing where millions revolve around breeding careers and some trainers can appear aloof, Cecil took time to sign autographs and chat to curious racegoers.
At first glance an apparent aristocrat, yet with a feeling towards the 'ordinary' public, he wasawarded a knighthood almost exactly two years ago in the Queen's Birthday Honours List - tribute to a man as quirky as some of the animals he trained.
"He's a lovely man, a people's man. He has an important job and could be as up in the clouds as he wants to be, but he's very approachable, very understanding," said Frankel's jockey Queally on hearing of his knighthood.
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