Sir Henry Richard Amherst Cecil (11 January 1943 – 11 June 2013) was a British flat racing horse trainer.

[1] Cecil was very successful, becoming Champion Trainer ten times and training 25 domestic Classic winners.

[5][6] Cecil was born on 11 January 1943 in a hospital near Aberdeen, ten minutes ahead of his twin brother David.

[7] His mother, Rohays Cecil, was the daughter of Major-General Sir James Burnett of Leys, 13th Baronet, owner of Crathes Castle, Aberdeenshire.

[8] He described himself as "very late-maturing and backward", saying that he was the first boy from his prep school ever to fail Common Entrance to Eton.

[8] He took out his own licence to train in 1969 and that year had his first winner with Celestial Cloud at Ripon on 17 May, with Wolver Hollow winning the Eclipse Stakes in July to give Cecil his first Group One success.

[11] In his early years Cecil received the support of Lord Howard de Walden, a noted breeder and owner of racehorses.

[16] In 1976 he had taken over the running of Warren Place in Newmarket from Sir Noel Murless, the father of his first wife, and he turned the stables into what has been called "the most glamorous yard in Europe",[17] setting it at "the pinnacle of British racing".

[3] Prince Ahmed bin Salman, the owner of Oath, one of Cecil's Derby winners, once said: "Winning Classics is easy.

[4] Among the jockeys to ride for Cecil, the most notable have been Steve Cauthen, Lester Piggott, Joe Mercer, Kieren Fallon, Pat Eddery and, later, Tom Queally.

In the space of a few years a number of owner-breeders with long-standing relationships with Cecil died, including Louis Freedman, Jim Joel and Lord Howard de Walden.

[12][21][22] A number of Cecil's most notable horses had been owned by Sheikh Mohammed, including Oh So Sharp, Diminuendo, Indian Skimmer and Belmez.

[31][32] In his four-year-old season Frankel won the Group One Lockinge Stakes at Newbury before an eleven length victory in the Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot, described in one national newspaper as "possibly the best single performance by any horse, on any track, since three Arabian stallions were imported into Britain to found the thoroughbred breed in the early years of the 18th century".

Newspaper reports alleged that his wife was being unfaithful, including with an unidentified jockey, while a front-page story in the News of the World suggested that Cecil had stayed at the Grand Hotel in Brighton with an £800-a-night prostitute.

Days after the story broke Cecil dismissed his stable jockey Kieren Fallon for "personal reasons".

Fallon issued a statement denying that he was involved in the breakdown of the Cecil marriage and began legal proceedings for breach of contract; the case was settled out of court.

"[49] Royal Ascot paid its respects to Cecil with a minute's silence before the opening race of the five-day meeting at 2.20 pm on 18 June 2013.