Lady Jane Cecil overcome with emotion
Fifty weeks after the death of Sir Henry Cecil, the great and much-missed trainer was once more on every mind in the winner’s enclosure at The Curragh on Sunday as Noble Mission, one of his former charges and a brother to Frankel, achieved a career peak in winning the Gr1 Tattersalls Gold Cup.
It was a first Group One success for Cecil’s widow, Jane, who struggled against tears as she sought to explain the importance of this moment, to her and to everyone who remembers Cecil at Warren Place, his Newmarket stable.
“I just can’t believe it,” she said, “it just shows that dreams can come true. Our big thing was to have a Group One, so that we could raise the flag for Henry.”
This was not a metaphorical allusion. The flag exists, bearing the coat of arms of Cecil’s family, Scottish aristocrats. It was Cecil’s habit to fly it from a flagpole every time he trained a Group One winner and now his survivors have reason to raise it again.
Nor is there any reason to suppose that this will be the final occasion, since Noble Mission is now a realistic contender for other major races and also because the team led by Lady Cecil has now proved that they can compete at the highest level. This matters enormously; one of the great unspoken questions after Cecil’s passing was whether his family would be able to sustain the operation in his absence and a great many doubts were held on the subject, as evidenced by the diminished number of owners who continue to have horses there.
“The horse was great and James [Doyle, jockey] was great but I can’t thank Prince Khalid enough because it was a big thing for him to leave Noble Mission with us,” Lady Cecil said, acknowledging that the horse could have been retired or sent to America in search of fresh opportunities.
Frankel’s brother Noble Mission wins his first Gr1
“I’ve got a very, very good team, a really good assistant and a very good head lad. It’s a huge team effort but obviously you have to have the horses. I’ve got almost 30 horses for Prince Khalid. Without the horses, you can’t do it and the Niarchos family have been really good, too.
“Over the winter, I said to Prince Khalid, we were hoping to get a Group One with him [Noble Mission]. I thought maybe we’d go to Germany or whatever, I never thought we’d get one here and so early. It’s just brilliant. I’m still shaking.”
Representing the owner, Teddy Grimthorpe was asked about the decision to keep such a good number of horses with Lady Cecil. He said: “The association with Warren Place was a tremendously strong one and Prince Khalid had been loyal throughout the bad times, so, from that point of view, it was no great surprise.”
This was a fair point, since the owner had remained supportive of Cecil during some very lean years a decade ago. Grimthorpe added that Noble Mission is now likely to miss Royal Ascot in favour of having a short break before tackling the Eclipse Stakes at Sandown in July.
His success here provided Doyle with a second Group One of the weekend, after his Irish 2,000 Guineas victory on Kingman the previous day, but Doyle was only third aboard Vote Often in the 1,000 Guineas that followed Noble Mission’s moment of glory. That race went to Marvellous, who was last at halfway but flew home under a strong Ryan Moore ride to score by three lengths from Lightning Thunder, also second in the English 1,000 three weeks ago.
Marvellous’s trainer, Aidan O’Brien, was winning this race for a sixth time and said the filly was likely to be aimed at the Oaks, for which she is now 10-1. “She’s a nice, compact filly and I don’t think she’d have any problems handling Epsom,” O’Brien said.
In France, Cirrus Des Aigles landed the fifth Group One of his career in the Prix d’Ispahan, comfortably holding off the outsider Anodin. Olympic Glory, running just eight days after winning the Lockinge at Newbury, appeared not to enjoy having another outing so soon afterwards, though he may have failed to stay the nine furlongs on soft ground.
Cirrus Des Aigles is likely to have his next race in England, either the Coronation Cup at Epsom in a fortnight or the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot.
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