[TouchOfGrey]

Frankel's victory at York made me feel 'twenty years better', says trainer Sir Henry Cecil, as he battles cancer

Still fighting cancer, suffering from a desperately low immune system and looking thin and frail underneath his black fedora, Cecil has hardly been seen on a racecourse since Frankel won at Royal Ascot. Just getting to York had been such an obvious effort and that was a fact hugely appreciated in this most sporting of counties, but the feeling was mutual. “It’s fantastic,” whispered Cecil. “It’s great for Yorkshire and they deserved to see him.”

When asked how it made him feel, the trainer, who has to issue written instructions to his staff, said: “Twenty years better.”