Road to the Epsom Derby 2011

Gamla Stan said:
Sheikh Mohammed might be good for British racing but he oversees a borderline Police state, has encouraged nigh on literal slavery and is absolutely clueless (not just with his horses either).
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Aren't you just back from (another) visit to said police state?!:p:lol:
 
Hamm said:
Aren't you just back from (another) visit to said police state?!:p:lol:
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Yeah, I hate the pisshole but I love the racing there. :lol:

Just realised he had one shrewd idea, Emirates Airline. Although I think his son runs that show.
 
Colin Phillips said:
Didn't he split up with Natalie after she was discovered in the shower with some jockey or other, allegedly?
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It is a real-life scandal that reads like a Jilly Cooper novel. Natalie Cecil, the former wife of the racehorse trainer Henry Cecil, has revealed how she was ostracised by the Newmarket racing set after her affair with a leading jockey and her battle against drink and drugs.

Mrs Cecil, 36, has disclosed how her marriage crumbled after her illicit one-night stand and her husband Henry's "encounter" with an £800-a-night prostitute at the Grand Hotel in Brighton.
Mr Cecil spent the night with the 20-year-old call girl while he and his wife were fighting to save their marriage. At the time, Mrs Cecil was being treated in the Priory Clinic in London for her addictions to alcohol, diet pills and Prozac.

The aloof trainer even visited his wife at the Priory and gave her a present on the day that details of his hotel room visit from Claire Jacobs, the prostitute, emerged on the front page of the News of the World under the headline: "Top trainer Cecil and the £800 vice girl".

Mrs Cecil, who was speaking for the first time about the break-up of her marriage and her divorce last year, had been shown a copy of the article earlier in the day by a fellow patient at the Priory.
He [Henry] arrived with a teddy bear that I had seen in a shop in Brighton," she says. "It was small compensation considering he had been with a hooker. I had a few words with him: a few very loud words." Mr Cecil issued a statement after the story confirming that Miss Jacobs had spent the night with him, but he denied having sex with her.

After Mrs Cecil left the Priory in 1999, Mr Cecil wanted a reconciliation and his wife considered moving to a rented house in Newmarket. She changed her mind, however, after a chance conversation. "I spoke to the wife of another trainer and she said, 'You might as well stay in London because you won't be invited to any dinner parties if you come back here'."

Mrs Cecil, who took the advice and moved to London, says of her decision to combat her addictions at the Priory: "It was hideous, hideous, hideous - and the best thing that ever happened to me. It was like starting all over again."
She had turned to drink and drugs after she became depressed by her fluctuating weight and her troubled marriage. When her weight soared, she turned to diet pills. When she became depressed, she took Prozac. When the drugs kept her awake, she drank alcohol to help her sleep. "I had lost my identity," she says.

Mrs Cecil was unfaithful during a working visit to Ireland in 1999 and had a one-night stand with a leading jockey. "Until then, I had been 100 per cent faithful. I met someone who made me laugh and whom I could drink with, and one thing led to another." She confided in two friends, one of whom went to the News of the World.

The result was a front-page story detailing her fling - including sex in a shower - with an unidentified jockey. Days after the disclosure, Mr Cecil, now 60, dismissed Kieren Fallon, his talented stable jockey, for "personal reasons". Mr Fallon, in turn, issued a statement denying that he was the jockey at the centre of the scandal.

In an interview with Tatler magazine, which is published this week, Mrs Cecil tells of her regret over her actions. "I got myself into an undignified situation," she says.
"I'll always regret it, not because I let Henry down - he'd let me down in that department - but because I had let myself down. Being unfaithful to someone is the lowest you can stoop. I told Henry what had happened before the article appeared. He was understanding and said, 'We do these things when we are low'."

Mrs Cecil had met her husband in 1989 when she was 22 and he was 46: she was running a breaking yard for young horses just outside Newmarket and Mr Cecil brought his yearlings to her.
Soon afterwards, they started an affair that became the talk of the racing town in Suffolk which has 70 racing stables and 2,500 horses, some worth millions of pounds, in training.

At the time, Mr Cecil was married to Julie Cecil, the daughter of the late Sir Noel Murless, who had trained for the Queen at Warren Place, where Mr Cecil now trains.
Eventually Julie Cecil, the mother of the couple's two children, moved out of the marital home and set up as a trainer nearby. Some of the couple's staff went with her, but most stayed with Mr Cecil, where they were hostile to the new mistress of Warren Place. "Many were openly abusive to me, but Henry didn't interfere. He said I had to earn their respect. I became as abusive as they were," says Mrs Cecil, who had a son, Jake, now nine, during her marriage to Mr Cecil. Owners and trainers were also aggressive towards her, she says, because they blamed her for wrecking the trainer's marriage.

Mrs Cecil revealed that her former husband, who has been champion racehorse trainer 10 times, was heartbroken by the decision. "Henry would bring along a young horse like a flower and to have it taken away from him just as it was going to blossom was horrendous," she says.
She added, however, that as the owner of the horses, the sheikh was entitled to do what he wanted with them. "If he wanted to paint them like zebras and sell them to a circus, he was entitled to because they were his horses."

In 1995, three years after they were wed, the Cecils were at the centre of yet another scandal when Sheikh Mohammed al-Maktoum, the richest racing owner in the world, removed his 40 horses from Mr Cecil, claiming that he had been kept in the dark over an injury to one of his thoroughbreds. Later Sheikh Mohammed called a press conference at which he let it be known that Mrs Cecil's alleged interference in the yard had played a part in his decision to remove his horses.

Mrs Cecil admits that she made mistakes, but insists that interfering in the stables was not one of them. "I never did one thing, not one thing, without being asked to by Henry. I was just doing my best, but my best wasn't good enough."
 
"Being unfaithful to someone is the lowest you can stoop." Ahhh... didn't cross your mind when you bonked Julie's husband and father of two kids, and bust up a marriage?

Neither of them came out of the business smelling of roses. Probably the reason why Her Madge hasn't cast the magic sword over Henry's shoulders by now. Perhaps she felt that his father-in-law's name was rather besmirched? Julie Cecil seemed to behave with great dignity at the time.
 
Updated on Stoute Derby horses..

Sir Michael Stoute is considering the totesport Dante Stakes at York on May 12 for the Queen's Investec Derby hope Carlton House.
Carlton House has recovered from a minor hiccup and is said to be in the same boat as his stablemate Sea Moon, another to have been of interest in the betting for Epsom during the winter.
Stoute is a five-time winner of the Derby already, including last year with Workforce, and he was notably enthusiastic about Carlton House when he strolled home nine lengths clear in a maiden at Newbury last autumn.
The runner-up Yaseer came out to finish third in last week's Breeze Up Vendors Craven Stakes at Newmarket, and Her Majesty's colt is just 10-1 with Stan James for the blue riband event.
"Carlton House had a foot infection but he's moving into strong work and seems to be progressing well," said Stoute.
"We'll soon decide where we're going to aim him and he'll go for a Derby trial.
"The Dante is a possibility as it's a race we like."
Of Sea Moon, who was beaten on his debut at Leicester but rectified his situation when winning at long odds-on at Yarmouth, Stoute added: "He's at the same stage as Carlton House.
"He had a nasal infection, which was a minor setback, and he needs to do a nice piece of work before we decide anything."
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Not saying he'll necessarily turn out as a Derby horse but I've had a chunk each way at 10s on Genius Beast in the Sandown Classic Trial tomorrow. Nice form at 2 with Frankel, Nathaniel and Picture editor. His maiden has worked out well, and he seems quite big here with nothing else to be wary of. He is bred to be a champion, being out of Shawanda. Looking forward to seeing him run.
 
Won very nicely.

Looked well in the paddock, albeit small.

My biggest bet on a horse in some time. I think he is entitled to go for another Derby trial, as this race looked stronger in depth than recent renewals.

40/1 not a bad price considering he looked better the further he went, wasn't given that hard a ride and the Derby could cut up (O'Brien could also bring an army though).
 
Well Done!

I meant to reply (smartly) last night that Genius Beast was seriously well fancied FTO against Frankel last season when 3rd. I think you might have said he was an eye catcher at the time. Well done again!
 
Great stuff Hamm - sounds like you copped a small fortune, don't go wasting it on drinks for French girls though ;)

Martin
 
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Gave a fair chunk of it back on Arsenal. Thank God I can't bet on them till next season - 4 months in which to make money..
 
I owe Hamm one too, a good spot. 12/1 for a horse with that form trained by Al Zarooni with that breeding was like Christmas in hindsight. Had a reasonable bet but not big enough as I'm still treading carefully with the flat.
 
Cheers. I thought it stood out form wise and had followed it very closely as I was a huge fan of shawanda back in the day. I think there are worse 40/1 Derby horses. He is improving with each run, looked better the further he went, and probably ran to near mid teens today. Not suggesting he is the winner or anything but he has near as good a chance as World Domination or Carlton House. Still needs to keep improving - I'd like to see him go to Chester and take in one of those trials, learn, improve hopefully, skip the tougher Dante and see where he stands then.
 
Hamm said:
Still needs to keep improving - I'd like to see him go to Chester and take in one of those trials, learn, improve hopefully, skip the tougher Dante and see where he stands then.
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He could take in a handicap off a mark of 88 (plus a penalty). I'd earmarked him as a horse well-treated in handicaps so predictably had nothing on him at Sandown.

Cecil appears to have the Lingfield Derby Trial in mind for World Domination, according to the Post.
 
gus said:
Cecil appears to have the Lingfield Derby Trial in mind for World Domination, according to the Post.
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He likes to use the race but I thought Teddy was steering towards the Dante. It wouldn't be the biggest surprise if he went to Lingfield, would it?
 
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