Henry Cecil

For more than four decades the elegant, slightly foppish figure of trainer Henry Cecil has been adulated by racing fans. He has handled countless top horses - his '25 English Classics' include four Derby winners - and won dozens of big races around the world. But his story is far from a chronicle of unbroken success. A sharp downturn in his racing fortunes in the late 1990s was accompanied by all manner of personal trials, including well publicised marital problems and then cancer, but the dogged manner in which he has climbed back to the top was rewarded in 2011 by the presence in his Newmarket yard of the wonder horse Frankel. Based on extensive research and interviews with those closest to "Cecil", and shot through with Brough Scott's unparalleled inside knowledge of the sport, this will be the racing book not only of the year, but of the decade.