Ed Dunlop: Sir Henry Cecil was a great, I’ve just been lucky

Ed Dunlop is not much given to regret but, as he arrived for the start of Royal Ascot today, he confessed to a feeling of enormous sadness. For the first time since he came to the Royal meeting as a 17-year-old with his father John, a former champion trainer, he will not see Sir Henry Cecil.

The Newmarket trainer tells me: “I knew him since I was a boy. He was a great friend of my father and godfather to my younger brother Harry [another trainer]. He was without a shadow of a doubt the greatest trainer, along with Vincent O’Brien.”