Henrietta Knight gearing up for first runners back at Wincanton

PA Sport Reporters
January 8, 2024 2:38 pm

‘I’m more nervous than when I sent out Best Mate in his third Gold Cup’.

Henrietta Knight is feeling the nerves as she prepares to resume her training career with two potential runners at Wincanton on Friday.

The 77-year-old handed in her licence back in 2012 following a stellar career highlighted by Best Mate’s three victories in the Cheltenham Gold Cup between 2002 and 2004.

She also counted 2000 Queen Mother Champion Chase winner Edredon Bleu among her stable stars, while Somersby, Calgary Bay, Racing Demon and Lord Noelie were other leading lights for the West Lockinge yard.

Zettabyte and Ballywalter, who could contest the Start Your RacingTV Free Trial Now Handicap Hurdle and Stayers Maiden Hurdle at Wincanton respectively, are evidently some way below the calibre of those stable luminaries, but Knight admits the butterflies are setting in.

Best Mate was a three-time Gold Cup winner for Henrietta Knight (nick Potts/PA)

She said: “I’m quite nervous thinking about it and I think I’m more nervous than when I sent out Best Mate in his third Gold Cup.

“Lots of people have been writing about us and I think there is an expectation for us to have a winner as we had a winner with our first runner in 1989 at Bangor.

“The plan is very much to go to Wincanton on Friday providing it is on. Zettabyte would prefer better ground, while Ballywalter is not a particularly fast horse but he will love the ground. He is a very honest and game horse that jumps and stays well.

“He is owned by my niece, who will be there at Wincanton with me, and he will run in my late sister’s (Celia) colours so it will be an extremely emotional day.”

Edredon Bleu won a Champion Chase for the Knight team (Barry Batchelor/PA)

Knight has kept her hand in the racing world over the intervening years, writing several books, as well as setting up a pre-training and schooling business, which she will be continuing to operate, and acting as racing manager to the late owner Mike Grech.

She will have former trainer Brendan Powell as her assistant, while secretary Dawn Graham has returned to her old role.

Knight saddled seven Cheltenham Festival winners during her first spell in the training ranks and the ultimate goal is to add to that tally – although she does not anticipate that success in the immediate future.

She added: “I would love to have another winner at Cheltenham, but I might have to wait until I’m in my 80s for that to happen as a lot of the horses we have are young and exciting and some are only two or three years old.

“It would be my aim to have another winner at Cheltenham as you can’t describe that feeling. However, for all that those previous days there were wonderful, I never look back.

“I don’t really have the time to sit back and watch those races. Racing is about planning ahead and keeping on going forwards. You can’t keep winding the clock back.

“We are already halfway through this season, and next season we will start to have targets. At the moment, it is just going to be one step at a time, but it will be nice when we get the first winner on the board.”