THEY were often portrayed as racing’s Odd Couple. The army major’s daughter who qualified from Oxford and taught history and biology, and the carousing, rabble-rousing twice-married former-jockey. Hen and Terry.

They were different in almost every aspect apart from their love of horses, and most pertinently, each other.

Henrietta Knight speaks adoringly of her late husband and though he embarrassed her many times, she secretly admired the fact that he possessed no filter. He was naughty and mischievous and she revelled in it really, despite the often paradoxical discomfort it might cause her.

The sense of loss following Terry Biddlecombe’s death after a long illness in January 2014 remains palpable. Very quickly, Hen decided that his story needed telling and so she wrote Not Enough Time.

There was no ghost writer. This is her third book and while Andrew Longmore provided some help with her first (Best Mate, Chasing Gold) she has worked solely with an editor for the follow-up (Best Mate, Triple Gold) and this current publication.

Knight may have been happy to play along as the sidekick to her gregarious husband, but she is a strong and capable individual; a pioneer for women in equestrian sport all her life.

MALE DOMAIN

Racing was very much a male domain when she was breaking and pre-training horses at West Lockinge Farm for Fred Winter, Tim Forster and a host of other top-tier trainers.

A keen eventer herself, she went on to be primary selector of the British three-day eventing team for a number of years, including the one that returned from the Seoul Olympics in 1988 with two silver medals.

She was already a successful point-to-point trainer by that stage and the following year, she took out a full licence.

The Hen and Terry double act had yet to materialise even though Knight is happy to admit that she was slightly fixated on the three-time champion jockey.

“I met him in the ’80s, when he came over and did an interview with me (for Central Television),” she recalls.

“I was so surprised that Terry Biddlecombe was coming over. I was thrilled. I dressed myself up in a very stupid little blue dress and tried to impress him. He wasn’t at all impressed. I didn’t see him again for another 10 years.

“I’d always followed him, always watched him at race meetings. I marvelled at his way of riding. He was my pin-up.”

His questionable reputation certainly didn’t put her off.

“I think that was part of the attraction, that he was so wild and had women everywhere. It was like a girl following a pop star. But by the time I met him, he was ready to settle down. He’d been to hell and back with his drink and his life, and his two wives before me. He just wanted to turn over a new life and start again.”

Once they became an item and were married - they had a wedding reception in 1995 but due to an inability to find Terry’s divorce certificate, didn’t actually wed until 2011 - the training operation was a partnership. No decision was made individually.

“We had a lot of banter between us and we argued about things but we never had a proper row. He complemented me. I respected his judgement so much.

“He was brilliant to my owners. Oh my God, the things he used to say to them. It used to make me cringe. I would wish the ground would swallow me up, some of the things he said to them! I think they enjoyed it… they came back for more anyway.”

ADMIRATION

This is delivered in a tone that while some bit horrified, possesses more than a hint of pride and admiration, that someone would possesses such naughtiness that she could never dream of but might quite like.

“Obviously I didn’t know him ’til the last 20 years of his life but he did such a lot for racing and had so many followers. He was a remarkable man as all the jockeys who rode against him would say; there was never anybody like him and there never will be again. He was unique.

“He just enjoyed life and just went through life as though there was never an end. He loved people and loved living. He was the same with everybody and treated everybody equally. He certainly punished his body with his falls, his alcohol and his life with the ladies.

“He didn’t give himself much peace. A lot of his friends say it was amazing he lived until 72 as he didn’t half give his body some knocks.”

The fun was there right to the end and the book has many wonderful anecdotes, such as him indulging in wheelchair racing and turning his mobility scooter upside down on a path Knight had forbidden him to take because of its unsuitable terrain.

In the earlier years, he put two hands down the front of Henrietta’s shirt while interviewing potential staff, apparently to see if the prospective worker was capable of being shocked! Then there was the time he sacked all the staff.

“There was quite a lot of language I can tell you. He thought they were cutting all these corners and he told them all to ‘F**k off.’ So they did all f**k off and the next morning there was nobody in the yard bar two and we had about 60 horses.”

She managed to persuade them back, and they learned that what Terry said wasn’t always what he meant; that his bark was worse than his bite. It was his growl that prompted one of the couple’s many Irish friends, the Irish Jockeys’ Association secretary, Andrew Coonan to christen him The Bear.

“He’d always have the last word. You could never tell him what to do. You had to go along with what he wanted to do and if he did some rather extraordinary things, you had to turn a blind eye. You couldn’t control him. I think his first two wives found that out. You couldn’t lay it down to him. He had the last say.

“So I did my thing and he did his thing and then we came together with all the training. But I could never order him to do anything.”

SPECTACULAR

It worked on a personal level but also produced spectacular dividends professionally too. Only four horses have won the Cheltenham Gold Cup three times in succession. The remarkable Golden Miller managed it five times while Cottage Rake and Arkle did the three.

Knight and Biddlecombe achieved racing immortality when getting Best Mate in pristine condition for the blue riband of jump racing from 2002-2004.

There are some that knock the feat, claiming that connections were ultra-cautious with their stable star, but just getting a horse to Cheltenham in one piece is a feat in itself.

Remember, when Matey won his second Gold Cup in 2003, he was the first since L’Escargot in 1971 to retain his crown as champion staying chaser. These were heady times.

“It certainly kept the adrenaline running. There was never really a time to completely relax. There were no mobile phones, no text messages or even emails really. People would just call in to the yard to see him. It was non-stop.

“We didn’t like leaving him so we stayed at home. We became rather boring actually. We had our own company and just looked after the horse. But we had a lot of visitors. There was this hype all the time, people ringing up wondering what was going on with him.”

It sounds oppressive.

“Not really because funny enough, when you get into the swing of it you get used to it. Terry was so good at dealing with the public. They were wonderful days and I don’t regret any moment of them. Even the attention we got.

“There were moments at Cheltenham for the second and third Gold Cups when you were swamped by crowds and media and everyone recognised you. Nobody had ever heard of me before Best Mate and all of a sudden, everywhere you go, they want to talk to you.”

Despite his place in the annals of racing history, Knight believes that Best Mate has not got recognition commensurate with his achievements.

“I think he gets very little credit. It’s all the Kauto Stars and the others but they’ve not won three Gold Cups in a row. At least they’ve given him the recognition of naming an enclosure after him at Cheltenham. I don’t think the people were behind some of those other horses like they were behind Best Mate. He had such a following.

“When he died at Exeter, it was almost as if he was meant to die in public because all his fans were there. It was a strange thing, that if he had to go, he wanted to do it with everybody around him.”

That was extremely difficult and Terry took it very badly, over-indulging in the whisky that night. Having been taught by a strong mother never to cry in public, Hen maintained a firm grip on her emotions until that evening, when she “cried buckets”.

Instead, she walked Best Mate’s last jockey, Paul Carberry back to the parade ring and prepared Racing Demon for his first chase.

Racing Demon won and the ovation from an understanding crowd was deeply moving. A passage in the book illustrates it wonderfully.

“As I walked to greet the horse, Timmy (Murphy) put out his gloved hand and gave my own hand a tight squeeze. When he walked into the winner’s enclosure, the crowd gave Demon a huge reception. There were massive cheers and I remember saying to Timmy, ‘This is unbelievable.’ He said, ‘They do have hearts, you know.’ I will never forget that demonstration of affection. It touched me immensely.”

Racing Demon turned out to be a decent representative of the Knight-Biddlecombe venture, winning three Grade 2s and eight races in total. Karshi had provided the first Grade 1 and Cheltenham Festival success in what was then the Stayers’ Hurdle in 1997, while Impek, El Vaquero, Calgary Bay and the remarkably consistent Somersby also showcased the training duo’s talents.

FLAGSHIP HORSE

Edredon Bleu holds a special place in Knight’s heart though. In any other yard, he would have been the flagship horse. The French-bred gelding won 25 times, 24 of them over fences. A total of 11 of those wins were in graded races, three of them Grade 1s.

“Edredon Bleu was a little star and he’s still alive. He’s (rising) 24 now and in great form. He was always the second string so to speak with Best Mate around. What he achieved was nothing short of amazing, to win a Champion Chase and a King George over two different distances. The public adored him.

“I went to the party at Adare Manor given by J.P. (McManus) for A.P. (McCoy)’s celebration in August and they had A.P.’s top 10 races and Edredon Bleu was number five. It brought it all back again. He was electric over his fences and yet if you trained him at home, he was not at all fast. He was one of the slowest horses we ever trained. It was just that he was so quick jumping and away from the jump. The others were still landing and gathering themselves to get into a stride and he’d gone.”

Terry suffered his stroke in 2011 and the combination of an increasing workload around the yard due to his absence and the demands of looking after him prompted her to stop training. He was her priority.

They continued their regular visits to Ireland, especially their stays in Connemara’s Ballynahinch Castle, which will host one of her book launches the week after next. She has friends all over the country though and will spend a night with the Coonan family in Kildare when she comes over to sign books at Punchestown on December 6th, John Durkan Chase day.

ADORED

“When we came over to the Irish point-to-points people adored him. We had so much fun in Ireland. Terry rode the first Irish Sweeps Hurdle (now the Boylesports Hurdle) winner ever (Normandy in 1969). It was in Fairyhouse then before switching to Leopardstown.

“I adored Ireland. I used to hunt there as a teenager and in my 20s. I made some wonderful friends. I used to go over with Tim Forster to look at young horses that he would buy.

“In those days they were wild horses. Nowadays they’re prepared and disciplined. In the days I used to go around Cork with a wonderful man named Paddy Flynn, we used to go around looking at all these young horses up in the hills, talking to everybody… they were completely unhandled. They were lunatics. And I would get sent over to break them in.”

She recalls Tom Cooper from Monasterevin being “a great judge of a horse” but they rarely travelled a more familiar route than the one down to Clare to the Costello Gold Cup nursery. That was where Best Mate was bought in the spring of 1999 and many more before and after. They remain very close.

On a visit in 2013, Terry picked out a lovely brown gelding by Presenting. Now owned by the Radford family who also had Racing Demon, he was named The Last Cavalier by Mick Channon after Biddlecombe.

Second in two bumpers, the five-year-old is currently on the easy list but hopes are high that he will represent Biddlecombe in fittingly high-flying fashion over the coming years.

Meanwhile, Hen has returned to breaking and pre-training. No two days are the same and life is good, if not as good as they would be were Terry still by her side, or down at the local in Wantage where she dropped him off to catch up with some of his buddies.

She continues to judge horses, having done so at the RDS many times and will be judging at Balmoral and Charleville next year.

This is a wonderful read, both hilarious and poignant. A love story at its core, with horses just the conduit of the narrative. Henrietta Knight was and is besotted by Terry Biddlecombe. When she feels sad, she thinks of what Terry’s long-time weigh room colleague, Bill Smith says Terry would have said about pining.

“F**k it. We can’t live in the past. Let’s have another drink.”

Sláinte.

NOT ENOUGH TIME

My Life With Terry Biddlecombe

HENRIETTA KNIGHT

Head of Zeus

£16.99