Sir Henry Cecil’s 7 Wins in The Sussex Stakes at Goodwood plus a Tribute to The Great Trainer HRL.

great , still my fav ever trainer , closely followed by Guy Harwood.

Guy Harwood, What  about the  horse  he  ran  in the King George V1 and Queen Elizabeth Stakes ??

There's a top trainer who was around that time who gets over looked when trainers
get mentioned,my favourite trainer,Geoff Wragg.

What a character. When Godolphin got their first 2yo winner at Ascot, I said to my pal, lets go and see Sheikh Mo gloating in the winners enclosure.Why my pal said , so as we walked over I told him the story that  Cecil had said , after they took  2yos from him that they will be able to train racehorses but will not be able to make them. Hence it was important for them to get a 2yo winner.Sheikh Mo was beaming. Then we realised that there was someone leaning between us with a big grin on his face.Henry of course. At least he  had a sense of humour.

Top draw my number 1

Cecil, Stoute, Harwood, Cumani, Wragg as someone said, and many, many more

it was the halcoyn days for me...

and how could i forget John Dunlop.

Barry hills too, made me packets at Donny and Chester.

Or Ian Balding. Mill Reef was earlier but plenty of Group 1 horses in the late 80s and early 90s including Lochsong and Selkirk.

indeed, barry at chester in certain races was a shoein

and Balding...lol, remember Forest Flower fondly.....so many trainers, and of course no Godolphin or Coolmore which
helped greatly.

we had cole, chappel_ hyem,cumani,tree,brittain, hannon competition was so strong then, and alec stewart ,

Sir Henry was the greatest imo , when i first started betting on flat racing in the mid/late 70s whilst at school there was just something about the guy that made me take notice. The brilliant miler Kris was my absolute favourite in his stable, a lovely looking chestnut who i thought could never get beaten until he got pipped by Tap On Wood in the 2000 Guineas, a race he should have really won. A couple of months later he showed us what he was made of when powering home to win the St James Palace stakes at  Royal Ascot from Guy Harwood's Young Generation, a top horse himself. From memory, even though there was a fair amount of build up to the clash in the press, the race was run at the end of the afternoon and was not shown live on BBC, i remember listening to the Radio 2 commentary on the way home from work.

Following Sir Henry's horses was like supporting a football team for me in those days, especially with so many other top trainers around with their own following.
My brother was a big fan of Dick Hern and made a fair few bob backing Troy and Henbit when they won back to back derbies for his stable. So he had bragging rights for a couple of years at least. What great times they were, shame that things are not so competitive these days.