Henry Cecil: legend of the fall and heroic rise – with Frankel at the summit

The bigger they come, the harder they fall. There was no-one bigger than Henry Cecil, and he fell so far, so fast and so hard that it seemed inconceivable he would ever pick himself up again. That he did, so resolutely, so completely, so upliftingly, remains the defining image of the last decade.

Cecil, master of all he surveyed from his Warren Place eyrie, was the dominant force in the training ranks through the 1980s and 1990s.

He was the king, and he and his horses reigned supreme. Between 1979 and 2000 he won 20 British Classics and a shining shoal of Group 1 races, and the names in the record books wove themselves seamlessly into the fabric of the sport – Reference Point, Oh So Sharp, Bosra Sham, Kris, Indian Skimmer, Ardross, Diminuendo, Old Vic, Le Moss.