Selfies were not really a thing when Henrietta Knight handed in her trainer’s licence in 2012, but they come with the territory for a modern racing celebrity and she was stopped by several eager fans on the short walk from the paddock to the grandstand at Wincanton on Friday. “I still don’t know how to do them,” she said later. “I don’t know anything about those sort of things. When I first started training, I used to go around with a big telephone with an antennae. If I’d kept it, I could probably have sold it for a bit of money.”
A big bear hug from James Bowen, her runner’s jockey, in the paddock before the race was also a departure from the usual pre-race protocols. On a day when National Hunt racing welcomed back one of its most familiar and popular figures of recent decades, however, it felt entirely appropriate.
Knight was 65 in May 2012 when she announced her retirement from training in order to spend more time with her late husband, Terry Biddlecombe, who died in January 2014. The blue-blooded former boarding-school teacher and the rough-hewn former jockey were the sport’s most familiar celebrity couple in the early years of century, when Knight trained the exceptional Best Mate to become the first horse since Arkle in the mid-1960s to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup three times in a row.
In the dozen or so years since Somersby supplied the most recent of her 14 Grade One winners in the Clarence House Chase in February 2012, Knight has written three books, including Not Enough Time, a moving memoir of the life she shared with Biddlecombe on and off the track. She has also continued a successful pre-training business, preparing young horses for jumping careers.
Kelso 12.50 Penpal 1.20 Nab Wood (nap) 1.50 Massini Man 2.20 Doyen Du Bar 2.50 The Churchill Lad (nb) 3.20 Jet Legs 3.50 Super Citizen
Lingfield Park 1.00 Petra Celera 1.30 King’s Vanity 2.00 Gone Like The Wind 2.30 Upepo 3.00 One Night Stand 3.30 So Chic 4.00 My Kind Of Girl
But it is probably fair to say that no one expected Knight to reapply for a trainers’ licence at 77 years of age, or that she would be at Wincanton on a bitter January afternoon in 2024 with two runners in her name. The first, Zettabyte, was even tipped up, somewhat sentimentally, by Radio 4’s Today programme on Friday morning, despite being a big outsider in the betting, and while neither Zettabyte or Ballywalter, at 28-1, was able to trouble the judge, their trainer was just delighted to be back.
There are, as yet, no significant targets being set. “Just to get that first winner,” Knight said. “This season is halfway through and it’s difficult to pick up horses mid-season, because they’re settled in their other stables. [But] I’m getting some new owners and getting ready for next year, then we’ll know what we’ve got and we can set some targets then.”
The new owners looking to send horses to West Lockinge Farm are, she says, from “the younger generation”, and Dawn Graham, her “secretary and right-hand lady”, has warned that “I’m going to have to do an awful lot more on the social media aspect. I’m on Instagram. I can’t really work it, but I’m on it. Dawn was with me when I trained before, so she’s used to my eccentricities.”
Knight’s approach to training, though, will be much as it ever was, in part because her facilities and many of her employees are the same as ever too.
“I’ve seen enough people’s methods elsewhere, but at the end of it all, every person who trains, trains differently,” Knight said, “so we’ve more or less stuck to our old system, because you have to cut your coat according to your cloth and we’ve got our own setup. There’s things I would love to change but … it’s always worked and we can go to other places, which is what we often used to do before, we’d take the horses away to gallop them.”
In addition to the staff that have been with her for years, the former jockey and trainer Brendan Powell will play an important role as Knight’s assistant.
“Quite a lot of the staff are the same,” she said. “They’ve worked away [in the pre-training business] for many years without an end goal. Now there’s a purpose for what they’re doing and they’re excited about it all.”
As, clearly, is the trainer in charge. “It’s been a fantastic reception,” Knight said, after unsaddling Zettabyte. “It’s amazing how many old faces appeared, and they all look a little older. Like I do.”
Collonges can collect Classic
Venetia Williams’s 30% strike rate in November and December has dipped somewhat in the first fortnight of 2024 but most of her runners are still acquitting themselves well and Fontaine Collonges (3.00) could take the stable within touching distance of £1m in prize money for the season in the Classic Chase at Warwick on Saturday.
Fontaine Collonges’s season got off to an inauspicious start when she exited at the first in the London National at Sandown, but she made amends in impressive fashion when pulling 14 lengths clear of the runner-up in the Rowland Meyrick at Wetherby on Boxing Day.
A 7lb rise in the ratings for that convincing success seems more than fair, as the form suggested too that Fontaine Collonges had benefited from a wind operation over the summer. Saturday’s return to a marathon trip could also see further improvement from the lightly-raced nine-year-old, who has just 10 starts over fences in the book.
Wetherby 1.10 Colonel Harry was staying on strongly in the closing stages of the Grade One Henry VIII Novice Chase at Sandown last time and seems sure to appreciate this step up to two-and-a-half miles.
Kempton 1.30 Two of Flegmatik’s three career wins over fences were at this track and Tristan Durrell’s 3lb claim is also a positive.
Warwick 1.49 Kyntara is unbeaten in two starts since joining Mel Rowley over the summer and could well be up to completing the hat-trick after a 6lb rise for his latest success.
Kempton 2.07 He is the fourth pick of five in the betting, but Notlongtillmay was one of last season’s top novices and showed further improvement to finish a strong second in the Paddy Power Gold Cup in November.
Lingfield 12.50 Rising Force 1.20 Inverlochy 1.50 Mumayaz (nb) 2.20 Jenni 2.50 Via Blanca 3.20 Mick’s Spirit (nap) 3.50 Deed Pole
Hereford 1.07 Juventus De Brion 1.37 Crystal Moon 2.07 Imperial Jade 2.37 Ballybeen 3.07 Benny Silver 3.37 A Dublin Job 4.10 Jacobin
Wolverhampton 4.30 Big Narstie 5.00 Reve De Magritte 5.30 It’s Not Risky 6.00 Master Dandy 6.30 Gustav Graves 7.00 Bungle Bay 7.30 Jumira Bridge 8.00 Louisiana Bay 8.30 Carey Street
Warwick 2.24 Four highly promising novice chasers in a five-strong field, with Grey Dawning marginally preferred to Apple Away and Broadway Boy. A bad mistake two out left him with a mountain to climb at Cheltenham last time, but he still finished within a length of the winner and has considerable scope for further progress.
Kempton 2.42 Nemean Lion was just getting involved when a bad mistake at the second-last knocked him out of contention in the Greatwood at Cheltenham in November.
Warwick 3.35 The dependable Aye Right has not won since November 2021 but he has started to ease a little in the weights and Dylan Johnston also takes off a useful 7lb.
