Racing: Juvenile success for Cecil

HENRY CECIL registered the first victory from his 100- strong juvenile battalion through the newcomer Al Rawda at Pontefract yesterday. Cecil has made an uncharacteristically slow start with his youngsters and Al Rawda was only his fourth runner from that age group.

A more pleasing statistic for Cecil is his strike-rate at the Yorkshire course - Al Rawda's success kept his win-to- runner ratio over the past five years at close to 50 per cent.

'Most of my two-year-olds are on the backward side,' the former champion trainer said. 'But one or two are just starting to come right.'