At the time of writing, Henrietta Knight remains a retired National Hunt trainer, best known for saddling Best Mate to a hat-trick of wins in the Cheltenham Gold Cup in 2002, 2003 and 2004. Based at West Lockinge Farm near Wantage, Oxfordshire, where she has been running a successful livery yard since her retirement from the training ranks, Knight was by no means a one-trick pony and, in fact, saddled over 700 winners between 1989 and 2012. At that stage, she relinquished her licence to help care for her ailing husband, former champion National Hunt jockey Terry Biddlecombe, who suffered a stroke in October 2011 and died in January 2014, at the age of 72, after a long illness.
Until recently, Knight, 77, had not reapplied for her training licence but, after an 11-year absence, has now done so, much to the surprise of some observers. Reflecting on her shock decision, she told the ‘Racing Post’, ‘I’m probably mad, but one does do a few mad things in life. I’ve always had ambition and wanted to have an aim in life.’ Subject to the processing of her licence application by the British Horseracing Authority (BHA), her initial objective is to resume her training career at West Lockinge Farm as early as possible in 2024. Knight will be assisted in her endeavours by former trainer Brendan Powell Snr., because, as she put it, ‘…you need to have four eyes rather than two.’
Knight also expressed a wish to be ‘back in that winners’ enclosure at Cheltenham’. Aside from Best Mate, her 28 winners at Prestbury Park, so far, have included Karshi in the Stayers’ Hurdle in 1997 and Edredon Bleu in the Grand Annual Chase and the Queen Mother Champion Chase in 1998 and 2000 respectively.
Henrietta Knight’s twitter account: https://twitter.com/knighthen