SERGEANT CECIL - THE BOOK

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Excerpt from the exciting new book about Sergeant Cecil - courtesey of RacingPost.co.uk:

'There were a couple tailed off, and one looked a bit like my colours. I thought uh oh, he's had a long season, something's gone wrong'
The incredible story of the life and career of star stayer Sergeant Cecil is told in a new book by Steve Dennis.
In this extract, the doughty chestnut bids for a unique handicap treble in the Cesarewitch

Published: 27/06/2007 (Features) Steve Dennis.

THERE was one more race in Sergeant Cecil that autumn, and it would be at Newmarket on Champions Day - but Rod Millman had a choice to make. Most observers would consider his dilemma no choice at all-where would the merit lie in contesting the Group 2 Jockey Club Cup instead of attempting to reconfigure the history books in the Cesarewitch? - but Millman's remit was to give Sergeant Cecil the best possible chance to win a race, and if he thought the Cup was the best spot then he would have been doing the right thing by running him in it.
"There were two races," he says. "In the Jockey Club Cup, you would have to ask yourself whether he could beat Millenary, and he would have a hard race even if he could. But he was a good thing for the Cesarewitch if he didn't get boxed in, and when I discovered that no horse had ever won all three it helped to make my mind up.
"There was no pressure on us, because we'd already won two huge races - I never dreamed we'd win them - and it was more of a carnival atmosphere at Newmarket. We went there to enjoy the race."
No horse had won the Northumberland Plate, Ebor and Cesarewitch before - the three to attempt the treble had all been beaten at Newmarket. It was the kind of feat that was barely discussed because of its impossibility. Here were three of the toughest races in the calendar, run at a variety of trips over a four-month period, with the handicapper allowed to have his say between each race and a huge number of rivals invariably in opposition. Horses just didn't do the treble - pigs didn't fly - but there can't have been a soul at Newmarket, not immediately connected with one of the other runners, who didn't want the old chestnut to win.
His owner Terry Cooper was there, his wife Sue had finished her chemotherapy and was there, as was Ian, Cooper's eldest son from his first marriage. Neville Poole had come up with them. Cooper's brother-in-law and his son were there. Millman was there, chirpy as ever and fending off the myriad media interviews. Jack Micklem was there, keeping a close eye on proceedings, Sue Davey was there, keeping a close eye on Sergeant Cecil. Alan Munro was there, cool as a cucumber, mentally running through potential mid-race scenarios and preparing for every eventuality.
They made a hopeful little band in the parade ring, Cooper feeling the pressure, Millman and Munro more collected, calm in the face of the task awaiting them.
Munro laughs: "How could we ever think he was going to win the Cesarewitch? I wasn't feeling any pressure. Terry came up to me in the paddock, put his hand on my shoulder and said 'look, my boy,' - he always calls me 'boy' -'whatever happens, just enjoy it, and bring him back in one piece'. He's a great owner to ride for.
"We all knew the horse's requirements by now, but the thing to think about this time was whether I took him to the back or kept him closer to the pace, because there were so many runners. We were drawn high 28, on the far rail so I made up my mind to put him somewhere in the middle of the field."
Back in Kentisbeare, Sharon Steel didn't see Sergeant Cecil go down either, although that was through choice. "He'd been well up for it before the race," she says. "The day before a race he does one steady work, not two, and I usually have to take him in the yard because he wants to be on the gallop while the others go up again, and he really lets you know. The day before the Cesarewitch he was such a handful I had to put him back in his box."
The 34 runners left the stalls in a multicoloured wave. Munro was immediately gratified to find that there was plenty of pace, and he tucked Sergeant Cecil in towards the rail about two-thirds of the way back. From the packed stands, about two miles distant, his manoeuvring was practically invisible.
Watching racing at Newmarket is unsatisfactory at the best of times, with horses running straight towards the stands through the final mile and a quarter. Those without binoculars gaze at the big screen, and with 34 slightly blurry brownish horses involved, identification is not easy. Cooper was not finding it easy despite his easy-to-spot spotted silks.
"I lost track of him in the race," he says. "When the field turned for home there were a couple tailed off, and one looked a bit like my colours. I thought 'uh oh, he's had a long season, something's gone wrong' and asked Neville if he could see him, and then half a minute or so later he appeared through a gap."
It was a rough race. There was a right old cavalry charge coming down the Rowley Mile like a swarm of bees, jockeys jostling for position and horses running into pockets, clipping heels and abruptly changing course. Munro was still over towards the far rail, around ten or 15 horses back, and the shape of the race was changing. With half a mile to run the non-stayers began to cry enough, dropping back through the field as those with plenty left to give began to come through. It was what Millman had been worried about, but approaching the quarter-mile marker, Munro saw his chance.
"Luckily, at the two-furlong pole a gap opened up on the left and he was able to get out and show his brilliant turn of foot," he says. "When he picked up, I knew he would get there. I watched the replay and it was amazing, it looked like he wasn't under any pressure. The Ebor and Cesarewitch went perfectly right. He was the most professional he'd ever been at Newmarket - the long canter to post, all the traffic, always on the heels of the horses in front - he was great, he handled it brilliantly."
IN THE stands, Cooper wasn't so confident, but unlike Munro he couldn't feel the mighty warrior flexing his muscles and easing through the gears. "He pulled out to challenge and he was about fourth, and I didn't think we were going to win," says Cooper. "Then, as he moved forward, I thought he is going to win, he moved into second and looked really strong. He really stretched and put everything into it."
Sergeant Cecil emerged from the scrum of horses and Munro drove him down into the Dip. He passed two horses on the way and had only King Revo ahead of him, but the leader had the rail to help him and was running on strongly. But Munro knew he would get there, because he knew Sergeant Cecil. The horse had come a long way to get where he was at that precise moment, and had touched the lives of many people on the journey.
Don Hazzard, sitting in front of his television with a glass of brandy at home in the village of Mere, thought of the day he bought the mare Jadidh at the sale-ring no more than a mile or two down the road from Newmarket racecourse, and the day Arthur Barrow phoned up and told him he had a fine chestnut colt foal.
Seamus Mullins, Lou Griffin and Alison Dunford thought back to the day Sergeant Cecil arrived at the yard, tottering down from the horsebox on his yearling legs, and the day he wore the stalls-handlers out with his effortless obstinacy. Sharon Steel, nowhere near a television and waiting for someone to tell her the result, remembered the day Sergeant Cecil arrived at The Paddocks, and the wild mornings that followed as she fought to smooth away his rough-edged exuberance and instil him with patience and practicality. Sue Davey thought of the hours of feeding, grooming, cleaning, brushing and washing, talking to her boy in a soft murmur as she shone his coat to a mirror sheen.
Rod Millman remembered the first time he'd seen the gelding, reckoning that he could win a race or two with him; Neville Poole thought of the short winter afternoons watching Sergeant Cecil at leisure, growing strong bone and clean limbs on the Paradise Farm chalkland; Terry and Sue Cooper thought of the disappointing early days of ownership, and the gradual dawning down the years that by some stroke of magic they had a horse in a million, in ten million.
Alan Munro might have thought of the years away from racing and how this horse had helped him to return home like a prodigal son, if he hadn't been more occupied by three lengths to make up and a furlong in which to do so. He asked his horse for what he knew he had in him, and they came up the hill into history. Sergeant Cecil flattened out like a greyhound and Munro mirrored him, crouching low in the style he learned and made his own half a lifetime earlier. As encouragement came crashing down from the stands in a great wash of joyful noise, Sergeant Cecil caught King Revo, passed him and strode away on his own. There was no stopping him now. He crossed the line three-quarters of a length clear, the horse who made the impossible treble possible.
"The applause from the stands was incredible," says Cooper. "Everyone was jumping up and down, shouting and screaming - I was shouting and screaming all right. Neville was two or three steps below me, and when Cecil went over the line we jumped into each other's arms and everyone looked at us. I can't describe the thrill of that little horse winning that race.
"Somehow I got down from the stands and ran up the course to congratulate Alan. I grabbed his hand and shook it, and he kept saying 'we've made history, you know, we've made history'. He must have said it three or four times, he was caught up in it as much as I was."
THE crowd moved as one towards the winner's enclosure, swarming through the concourse to get there as quickly as possible so as to greet the history makers as they returned to unsaddle. In a contest to find the happiest man on the racecourse, Millman was in a multiple dead-heat.
"The reception when he came in was amazing," he says. "Cecil had the biggest cheer of all, more than the Champion Stakes winner half an hour before. It was a fantastic feeling, it made me so proud, and it was wonderful for Alan in his first season back - he really took the horse up to another level."
In the maelstrom of the winner's enclosure, he told the assembled press pack: "The credit has to go to a good horse, good staff and a good jockey. I've been at the sales all week but the horse has been in safe hands at home under my head groom Jim Davies, and Alan rides this horse so well."
The next race was due off, and it was time for the Sergeant Cecil team to go. Millman flicked on the radio as he drove home, tuning in to Radio 5. "Cecil was all over the radio," he said. "They were talking about him and saying what a wonderful feat it was, and it really made me feel proud of what we'd achieved. Then I turned my phone back on and texts came flooding through, full of congratulations for me and the staff. It was a wonderful drive home."
Cooper took the same route, delighted with the day and even more so because Sue had been there to experience it with him. "It was absolutely fantastic, another dream day. On the way home, it really began to sink in that he had made history, so when we got back we phoned Don - he'd won another big breeder's prize, of course - and he came over and we opened a bottle or two.
"The Ebor had been the aim, the Plate was totally unexpected, and no-one could have imagined we'd win the Cesarewitch too. I wanted to win a big one, but instead I won three . . ." his voice tails away in happy incredulity.
If this story had been made up, you wouldn't have believed it.


HOW THE AMAZING STORY BEGAN

THE future Sergeant Cecil, however, had still to find a billet, but sanctuary was at hand in the shape of Terry Cooper, who ran an office furniture company in nearby Blandford Forum.
Cooper and Sergeant Cecil's breeder Don Hazzard were friends, having met a couple of years earlier when Cooper was looking for a horse to hack around on. He answered an ad placed by Hazzard for a mountain of a horse called Hazzard's Boy, but he was not what Cooper was looking for. However, there was another, more suitable horse available and Cooper bought that instead. He had a new horse and a new friend. The first link in the chain had been forged.
Cooper had already had a couple of horses in training and was looking for another, so Hazzard asked him to have a look at the chestnut yearling.
Cooper liked him, and struck a deal with Hazzard to pay £1,000 down, with an extra £400 payable if the horse won two races. Although in hindsight it is the sort of deal to make the seller rend his clothes in anguish, Hazzard has no regrets.
"At the time, I couldn't cope with the horses, so I was pleased to sell them on," he says. "Terry got himself a real bargain, didn't he - but that's the way it can go when you breed racehorses."
Such a phlegmatic and genuine approach is wholly in character, and although Hazzard sold his yearling for a song he still takes a great deal of enjoyment from his part in the story and from
Sergeant Cecil's achievements.
Now his horse needed a name, and Cooper had something in mind.
"My father died when I was nine, and my poor mother was left without any money and two children to bring up," he says.
"As a result, we couldn't give dad a headstone, we couldn't afford it, and although it wasn't something that worried me greatly when I was young and just skipping through life, as you get older you have more time to reflect on things.
"So when I got this little chap I thought it would be nice to name him after my father as a memorial. Dad served in the Great War in France and in the Second World War in England - he was Sergeant Cecil Edward Cooper.
"He enlisted at Camberwell in the Welsh Fusiliers in October 1915 and was assigned to the Machine-Gun Corps (no. 9859) the following year. He was sent to France in July 1916, came back after two months, then went back again in July 1917 and served for a year.
"He finished the war as a corporal - it says in his army book 'conduct: exemplary' - and when the Second World War began he enlisted in the Hampshire Regiment and served in the National Defence Companies, rising to the rank of sergeant.
"So I thought I'd call the horse Sergeant Cecil - it's a good name, it sounds nice, it's a proper name for a horse. I certainly picked the right horse to give the right name to."

Book Description:

Inexpensively bred, trained in deepest Devon (far from Newmarket's rolling acres and the traditional racing spotlight) and owned not by a sheikh or a multi-millionaire but by the owner of an office furniture company, Sergeant Cecil transcended his humble origins to carve his name in the history books and become one of the best-loved Flat horses of the last 50 years. In 2005 he was voted the Racehorse Owners’ Association’s Horse of the Year, and was nominated again in 2006.
Extensively and lavishly illustrated, the official story of Sergeant Cecil is an uplifting and empowering one, illustrating that even in the high-octane, high-finance world of twenty-first century horseracing, there is still plenty of room for fairytales to come true.

Customer Reviews:

Courtesey of www.amazon.co.uk


Fanfare for the Common Man , 28 Jun 2007
By Lee Ann Day-Whistler "www.famousracehorses.co.uk" (Wiltshire, England)

Horses in general and racehorses in particular have inspired many poets, musicians and painters to capture their spirit. I don't know what inspired Aaron Copeland's American classic Fanfare for the Common Man but it always reminds me of the glorious October day at Newmarket Racecourse when a horse named Sergeant Cecil completed a unique handicap treble. He became the first horse to win the Northumberland Plate, Ebor and Cesarewitch. Only three before him had attempted the feat and all had left their dream unfulfilled on the Newmarket turf.

So many racehorses give their lives to racing for our pleasure and are forgotten. Happily Sergeant Cecil will not be one of those. His achievements deserve to be remembered in a book - and this is a good one. It is well written and illustrated with many photos.

Cecil is the classic example of one from the `wrong side of the tracks' who came good. Not fashionably bred, inexpensively bought, trained in Devon not Newmarket by a small trainer and owned by a man who named him after his Father. The family of the first Sergeant Cecil were so poor at the time of his death they could not afford a headstone for his grave. Many years later his son had the vision to name this horse in remembrance of him. It is a very fitting name, we often speak of racehorses as warriors and this is one old soldier who went to battle with the aid of his talented trainer Rod Millman and his loyal comrade jockey Alan Munro, and claimed his place in history.

I feel privilged to have been there at Newmarket the day he lit up the course and the stands. The runners in The Cesarewitch race over a distance of 2 miles 2 furlongs (3,621 metres), beginning in the county of Cambridgeshire and finishing in Suffolk. But the journey of Sergeant Cecil and his connections which brought him to that winning post on that day had been much longer than that.

Unbelievably he went one better than making handicap history, he followed up with a Group 1 win at the age of 7 when most flat horses have been long retired. The oft quoted phrase, `he owes us nothing' really does apply to this horse. Whatever he may do in the future he has touched the lives of many people and will leave a bright legacy for himself and his namesake. His fans have given him a tribute website now - www.sergeant-cecil.com

This book is proof that fairytales can still come true, a great read if you are a racing fan - and even if you are not.

Classy horse, classy book, 9 Jul 2007
By Sergeant special

Sergeant Cecil is a modern racing great, and this book is a superb tribute to him. I buy a lot of racing books, and was really impressed with the quality of this one - great pictures, beautifully presented and very well written, with for once some meaningful interviews and some nice touches of humour. It's a cut above the ordinary, and a really class act - just like Sarge himself! Recommended.