Henry Cecil: Trainer of Genius - Hardcover

Sir Henry Cecil has been a brilliant trainer of racehorses, a charismatic and complex man. Brough Scott's achievement has been to explain Cecil's genius and charisma without shying away from the more complex issues. The result is a wonderfully rounded portrait of one of the most endearing figures in British sport. --David Walsh, chief sports correspondent of the Sunday Times

This book is a triumph of its genre, and does full credit to both the writer and his complex but so thoroughly engaging subject. It should be required, and enjoyable reading, for both the casual race watcher and the most ardent student of the sport. --Channel 4 Racing

The story of Henry Cecil's life is what the whole world of racing has been waiting for. Brough's book is a masterpiece and does the maestro full justice. --Ian Balding, Derby-winning trainer

... a classic book about a classic legend. --The Independent

... a gem of a book ... Brough Scott has written a brilliantly sensitive, balanced and authoritative book --Robin Oakley, The Spectator

Scott's tour of Cecil's inner self is as fascinating as it is illuminating --Charlie Brooks, The Daily Telegraph

Brough Scott, the author, has done an excellent job in capturing this remarkable, but flawed, man. --Country Life magazine

This is by far the best book on racing I have ever read. It combines a truly extraordinary story one that no novelist would have dared to submit with brilliant writing by an author who is almost as knowledgeable about horses and the turf as his subject. It is a just tribute to a man who deserves to be admired beyond even his achievements. --Stoker Devonshire, The Spectator

It's a great story, well told. --Daily Racing Forum

This is by far the best book on racing I have ever read. It combines a truly extraordinary story one that no novelist would have dared to submit with brilliant writing by an author who is almost as knowledgeable about horses and the turf as his subject. It is a just tribute to a man who deserves to be admired beyond even his achievements. --Stoker Devonshire, The Spectator

It's a great story, well told. --Daily Racing Forum

This is by far the best book on racing I have ever read. It combines a truly extraordinary story one that no novelist would have dared to submit with brilliant writing by an author who is almost as knowledgeable about horses and the turf as his subject. It is a just tribute to a man who deserves to be admired beyond even his achievements. --Stoker Devonshire, The Spectator

It's a great story, well told. --Daily Racing Forum

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.