Often, he and his two brothers own up to five out of six runners in top-class races. The Sheikh has spent millions on bloodstock and land around Newmarket and other racing centres. He’s not used to being questioned, particularly by a woman.”There are already predictions that the switch of focus from Britain to the United Arab Emirates may eventually render Newmarket a ghost town. The Sheikh and other members of the oil-rich Maktoum family are said to be developing Dubai as a leisure paradise, as an economic safeguard for when the oil runs out. In their investment in two state-of-the-art racecourses in Dubai and luxury facilities there is some poetic justice They are, in many ways, reclaiming what was theirs. Three centuries ago, the Arabian horse became the progenitor of the thoroughbred. Godolphin was the name of the famous 18th-century stallion.Yesterday, Ian Carnaby, columnist for Sporting Life, seemed to suggest that local sniping at Mrs Cecil clouded the real issue and warned that the Maktoums’ “stranglehold” on British racing ought to be the greatest cause for concern.

They say the second Mrs Cecil is a victim of small-town jealousies and insularity “The Sheikh has shown his true colours,” says one “He’s essentially an autocrat. To lose horses on the brink of success has caused great frustration to the Sheikh’s British trainers.For Natalie’s defenders, the villain of the piece is the Sheikh, and any arrogance or uppityness is his. This is the programme by which the Sheikh ships his most promising two-year-olds back to Dubai for winter. After a few months of air-conditioned boxes, hoof-friendly sand, specially prepared food and the attention of top-class riders in the Sheikh’s new purpose-built racing centres, they seldom return to their original trainers.

Natalie Cecil, her defenders say, simply voiced in public what many privately know: her only crime was to complain that her husband, like other trainers, is upset by the Sheikh’s new “Godolphin” training operation. The night before in the Bull, a local bar, they were putting on a brave face. “Henry’s a good employer and he’s promised there won’t be any immediate sackings,” said one member of a rival yard.But behind the saga lie deeper concerns and forecasts of much bigger and more widespread job losses. When Julie Cecil went, some of her husband’s most senior staff went too, along with a few of his customers.