On the eve of the Cheltenham Festival, the questions are answered by the former leading trainer who saddled Best Mate to an incredible hat-trick in the Cheltenham Gold Cup between 2002 and 2004.
Henrietta Knight was one of the most celebrated jumps trainers of her era, both for her remarkable record of big-race success and her renowned approach to the process of training, which no doubt drew from her previous incarnation as a schoolteacher. It was characterised by patience, a thorough education of young horses, and an understated campaigning style that ensured her stable stars were still winning major races at an advanced age.
Her greatest triumphs came with the wonderful steeplechaser Best Mate, who won the Cheltenham Gold Cup three years running (2002-04) and also the 2002 King George VI Chase at Kempton.
Knight, 76, retired in 2012 and is still influential in the sport as an advisor, a producer of young stock, and a voice of considerable experience in all matters of equine competition.
Which racing figure past or present do you most admire?
It has to be Vincent O’Brien. He was the most brilliant trainer of top jump horses and then he switched to training on the Flat and conquered that world too. His record at the Cheltenham Festival and in the Grand National – three different winners in consecutive years – was second to none, and just look at all the Flat champions he trained, Nijinsky, Sir Ivor, The Minstrel, Alleged and so many more for so many years. He was a pioneering figure too, one of the first trainers anywhere to travel horses regularly by aeroplane.
Which is your favourite venue, and race, anywhere in the world?
I love jump racing with a passion so it has to be Cheltenham, which is the beating heart of the sport. And my favourite race is the Cheltenham Gold Cup, which is still such a very important race, the cornerstone of the jump season. If Cheltenham is the Olympics, which people say it is, then the Gold Cup is the 100 metres, the most compelling race of all.
Who is your favourite racehorse and why?
Arkle. I saw him run but unfortunately I never saw him win. I was there at Kempton on that sad afternoon in 1966 when he was injured, his last race. He was the most incredible horse, not just for his incomparable racing record but also for the way he captured the public imagination, especially in Ireland. He was a national hero over there, venerated almost like a saint, and obviously the British took him to their hearts too but not like they did in Ireland. They used to talk of nothing else!
What is your fondest memory in racing?
That is quite easy to answer – Best Mate’s third win in the Cheltenham Gold Cup in 2004. I clearly remember the sheer relief of it, and the excitement. I wasn’t expecting him to do it but I was hoping he’d do it, and I was dreading the disappointment that we’d all have felt if he hadn’t won.
It was the hardest-won victory of his three, because they all ganged up on him [eventual third Harbour Pilot edged across Best Mate on the home turn and blocked him in] and it was a very close finish. Before the race I’d gone to the local betting shop and backed all the other horses in the race, just for a little bit of compensation if he hadn’t done it.
I thought he never got the recognition he deserved. People used to complain that he didn’t run often enough, but everyone trains like that now – look at Willie Mullins and his dual Gold Cup winner Al Boum Photo. But he does have a statue at Cheltenham and a racecourse enclosure named after him, which is a lovely touch.
If you could change one thing in racing, what would it be?
It’s this dreadful change to the whip rule* in Britain, and I certainly wouldn’t do what the BHA [British Horseracing Authority] has done because it’s been an appalling way to tackle the issue.
You simply do not make sweeping changes to a sport in the run-up to its biggest occasion – you wouldn’t move the goalposts just before the World Cup, you wouldn’t change the size of the ball or the pitch. Yet that is what they’ve done with the whip rule and racing. It’s crazy.
Whips are so soft now, so different from what they used to be, that to give a horse a few slaps on his backside is not cruelty. It’s just pandering to the perception of people who know nothing about racing and don’t care a jot about it either.
Some jockeys are riding scared now because they’ve had to change their style, and if there are problems and headlines at Cheltenham it will make a mockery of racing and could lead to owners leaving the sport in Britain.
Explanatory note: The whip rules in Britain were changed at the beginning of 2023 and implemented for jump racing on February 6 (Flat racing will follow on March 27). The rules are now stricter, with the threshold for whip use – before the stewards become involved – reduced to seven times over jumps and six times on the Flat.
Penalties for overuse and misuse have been increased, with the headline measure being the disqualification of any horse whose jockey has used the whip four times or more above the permitted level. Moreover, suspensions for jockeys are doubled in length if the offence occurs in a major race (classified as a Class 1 or Class 2 race), and riders now face a ban if their arm is above shoulder height when using the whip.
Henrietta Knight was speaking to Steve Dennis
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