Henrietta Knight returns to horse training after 11 years

The legendary trainer wins again after a long retirement

Henrietta Knight, trainer of three-time Cheltenham Gold cup winner Best Mate has made a grand return to horse training after 11 years.

The 14th of October 2024 saw Henrietta win for the time after a long time of retirement at the Royal Windsor racecourse flat season finale achieved with “Cotswold Cottage” a four-year-old horse whose jockey was former champion National Terry Biddlecombe.

Henrietta said, “I have trained before in the 90s and 80s and had a lot of success but when my husband Terry Biddlecombe fell very ill and died, I stopped training”. The morning her husband died her social media read, “A sudden numbness can over me, we had many threads, and we adored each other”. Terry fell ill in 2012 and died in 2014.

“But now I have come back to the sport I love, and hope we’ll still have more winners on the second creation of my training”, she said, adding that “I look forward to it”.

In a one-on-one interview, Knight attributes all the wins she registered in the 80s, 90s and 2000s to the horse “brilliant horse” Best Mate.

The horse unexpectedly collapsed and died in 2005 at Exeter racecourse and that is what sparked terry’s deterioration in health.

Henrietta then resorted to writing books in remembrance of her husband, “I wrote my book because I wanted my memories of Terry to be recorded. Due to loving him so much I felt a description of his amazing life should life should be outline. It was my gift to him and token of my thanks to him for sharing 20 wonderful years with me, he was a unique man, and my world is empty without him.