Frankel connections cautious about new film starring Jeremy Irons as Henry Cecil

A film depicting the career of Frankel and the renaissance of his much-loved trainer Sir Henry Cecil is being treated with caution by the great racehorse’s owner/breeders Juddmonte Farms.

It was announced in October last year that a feature film was set to be made about Frankel, the outstanding horse of the last decade and one of the best individuals to have ever raced, with Academy Award winner Jeremy Irons cast in the role of Cecil and production scheduled to start in the spring.

However, Juddmonte, the breeding and racing empire of Khalid Abdullah, have yet to be consulted by the organisations behind the proposed film and are waiting to see the progress of production before giving their blessing to the project.

Douglas Erskine Crum, the Juddmonte chief executive, said: “It’s still very early days. As I understand it they’re working on a script and how to put it together and when they’ve done that I hope we’ll be approached.

“It’s not being done in conjunction with Juddmonte. We know they are planning something but they are not the only people who have planned this and to my knowledge there are at least four other organisations who have thought about this over the last few years.”

Jeremy Irons: set to play Sir Henry Cecil in a film about Frankel

According to Eclipse Films, who are producing the title but did not want to comment on Thursday, Frankel is about “how Henry in his autumn years fought failure and illness to make Frankel the greatest champion racehorse of all time”, with the film to be directed by Ron Scalpello and written by Jim Piddock.

While not dismissing the idea of a film about Frankel and Cecil, Erskine Crum was eager to see the story around the horse and trainer told appropriately.

“It’s a great story – probably the greatest story of modern horseracing – so we await with interest,” he said. “It’s a step-by-step process from our point of view and we’re not overtly supporting anything at the moment.

“We’re waiting to see what happens and we just hope that if someone does take this forward it’s done in the best possible taste and it is a great story.”

Frankel, who was unbeaten in 14 races over three seasons, was one of a number of Juddmonte horses to excel during the last decade, and Erskine Crum admitted there was plenty of excitement ahead of the new Flat season.

Enable: will be back in training in 2020Credit: Edward Whitaker

Leading the way is Enable, the dual Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner who has been kept in training with John Gosden as a six-year-old by Abdullah.

Erskine Crum said: “It’s a very exciting place to be and what we have to remember is all this is done to Prince Khalid’s breeding programme and to his matings.

“He’s thrilled Enable is well enough to stay in training, but at the end of the day it’s up to John Gosden and the horse herself what happens.

"We’ll do everything we can to make sure she gets what she wants, and at the moment she wants to be a racehorse and wants to race.”

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