WHEN the reputation of the judge presenting a Dublin prize winner with their rosette means more than that symbol of success, surely that in itself is a measure of the judge’s calibre. Few could rate higher in the judging stake than the quite extraordinary Henrietta Knight; judge, author, Olympic team selector, Connemara pony breeder and racehorse trainer.

It was Julianne Corrigan who mentioned this Dublin vignette in her Breeders’ 10 feature in The Irish Field earlier this year, saying: “The proudest moment is our mare Fair Holly coming third as a three-year-old in the Draught young mare class in the RDS. Henrietta Knight judged the class that year and what a privilege it was to have a horse thought so highly of by her alone. Her comments about Holly in the ring after the prize-giving were even more meaningful to me.”

Henrietta Knight wears many hats. At Balmoral Show earlier this year, it’s the turn of her trusty navy hat, as she and Angus McDonald judge the young horse classes.

In an interval between the two and three-year-old classes – the latter produced their overall champion, Paula Howard’s Tullabeg Hello – she sat down for a rapid-fire round of questions. This is nothing new to Knight, well acquainted in dealing with the media, particularly at the stratospheric height of Best Mate’s fame.

She’s now back in the spotlight, following her decision to take out another trainer license in December last year.

“It’s great to be back, because I’m a person who likes to get up early. I love going to the gallops and seeing the horses working, it’s lovely to see all the heads coming out over the stable doors in the yard and to feel that we’re really doing it for a purpose.”

Seoul purpose

Hers is a life full of purpose and new ventures. Well-documented, it stands up to retelling every time, starting with growing up at West Lockinge Farm in Oxfordshire. She and her late sister, Celia, (married to former Cheltenham Racecourse chairman Lord Vestey), were surrounded by Shetland and later Connemara ponies, owned and bred by their mother, Hester.

“The Shetlands were always getting loose in the village and into people’s back gardens, they were very unpopular. I still live where I always lived and then Mum bred Connemaras. She was a very good judge, had a great eye for a horse or a pony and she had some very good winners.

“She bought a beautiful Connemara mare once from Ireland: Abbeyleix Delphinium, she’s famous and I always had that pony in my mind. If you saw Delphinium, she was just something else. I love my Connemaras.”

How many Connemaras in residence now?

“Too many. I do try to have quality over quantity though.”

Another four-legged template was the charismatic Best Mate, who she declared could not be faulted conformation-wise and had the presence and movement to be anything from a show horse to an eventer. Instead, he won three Cheltenham Gold Cups.

The road to Prestbury Park began back when Knight, an Oxford graduate, was a schoolteacher at St Mary’s School in Wantage. Teaching biology and history in the classroom, her spare time was spent producing young event horses and training point-to-pointers.

By 1989, when she first held a trainers’ license, she had saddled over 100 point-to-point winners. That winning form continued as a National Hunt trainer as she turned out over 700 winners, combined with her judging and three-day eventing interests.

Given the strength in depth of riders and horses in the current British squad, selectors were spoilt for choice when picking this year’s team for the Paris Olympics. A similar situation arose when Henrietta chaired the Horse Trials Selection Committee (1984-1988) during a similar medal-winning era for British eventing.

The team chosen for the Seoul Olympics was Ginny Leng (Master Craftsman), Mark Phillips (Cartier), Ian Stark (Sir Wattie) and Karen Straker (Get Smart).

Sir Wattie, by the thoroughbred stallion Bronze Hill out of a hunter mare, left Korea with two silver – individual and team – medals.

Henrietta Knight judging at the Balmoral Show 2024 \ Susan Finnerty

Match fit

A two-time Badminton winner as well, the Scottish-bred Sir Wattie retired after the Games and found a new job role with Henrietta as a hunter and ‘equine nanny’.

“I had Sir Wattie as my lead horse for my young horses at home, except that he didn’t like tractors and traffic, so he didn’t lead them up the village very well.”

Balmoral Show took place in May just after Badminton, won this year by the Irish-bred Greenacres Special Cavalier and Caroline Powell.

“I went to Badminton on Saturday for the cross-country. I always do. The whole format of eventing has changed so much.

"I think a lot of the horses lack fitness for the cross-country, they spend too much time in the arena and a lot of the breeding has changed too. You get less thoroughbred than you used to.

“On the Saturday, there were a number of very tired horses because the ground was quite dead. They’d had all the rain in the winter and underneath that Badminton turf, it was very tiring and some horses could have benefited by being a lot fitter. The second one [RCA Patron Saint, ridden by Lucy Latta] was trained by the Lattas who know much about racing, that horse was very fit.

“I think that the riders ride too long cross-country, they sit down too much in the saddle in between the obstacles and the horses need the riders to get more off their backs.”

For years, London 52’s rider Laura Collett has combined eventing with schooling racehorses. Knight feels more event riders could benefit from riding out racehorses, “and learning how to gallop horses better”.

“In years gone by, I trained with Lars Sederholm who was very famous. All his eventing riders, of which he trained a number, he used to send them over to me to work on horses on the gallops, when I had point-to-point horses and had just started training.”

From 1989, the year after the Seoul Olympics and with dual silver medallist-turned-schoolmaster Sir Wattie in residence at West Lockinge Farm, she trained over 700 winners up until 2012. No lack of match fitness there.

Edredon Bleu won the Queen Mother Champion Chase in 2000 and there were other good winners. The undoubted star though by a Prestbury furlong was Best Mate.

Best era

You can’t not ask about the Un Desperado gelding with the champion’s swagger and although, no doubt, his trainer been asked thousands of times about the horse she’s synonymous with, she readily responds when asked if we’ll see another horse that could capture the public’s imagination as he did.

“Whether you’ll see one who is so much regarded as the people’s horse again... I don’t know. Maybe it will be a horse on the flat but if there’s one horse that does well and people latch onto, it’s amazing how it crosses over so many different aspects of life.

“I mean, when he won the third Cheltenham Gold Cup he was on the front page of The Times newspaper. And sadly when he died, on a racecourse, he was again on the front page and the news about him seemed more important to the world and the people than some of the politics at the time. It was extraordinary.”

Part of his mainstream appeal too lay simply in his name?

“It was a great name, a lovely name.”

The Best Mate era, including his Cheltenham Gold Cup treble (2002-2004) looms again, when asked about that favourite racing memory.

“Well, I suppose it has to be the third Gold Cup. It was a dream that got realised and came true, just a big relief when he went past the post in front. It was just indescribable, really.”

His success garnered a number of awards for his trainer including the Horserace Writers & Photographers National Hunt Trainer of the Year (2002) and the Channel 4 Personality of the Year (2003).

Henrietta’s late husband Terry Biddlecombe was no stranger to awards either, being a three-times champion National Hunt jockey and her right hand man at West Lockinge Farm.

That golden era inspired a line of books, including Best Mate: Chasing Gold, Starting From Scratch: Inspired To Be A Jump Jockey, The Jumping Game; and Not Enough Time: My Life with Terry Biddlecombe.

Maximus

Although she stepped back from training for over a decade, Henrietta was never far from horses, either on the judging circuit, including judging the Burghley young event horse finals, or at the bloodstock sales.

Her instinct and eye for a good horse meant she was involved with buying numerous successful racehorses for clients. The most recent big name winner is of course the J.P. McManus-owned Irish Grand National (2023) and Aintree Grand National (2024) winner I Am Maximus, trained by the all-conquering Willie Mullins and ridden by Paul Townend.

“I go to so many sales for the racehorses and I’ve seen them from all ages and sizes, from the early sales to the young stock store sales. Being around so many breeds and breeders, I think you just get to develop an eye for the right horse.”

There’s always some advance homework to do in narrowing down the field from the sales catalogue entries. Does the individual have to match up to the page when seeing the horse in the flesh at the sales?

“Yes. Pedigree is important to me too, especially on the dam’s side.”

Technology chains

Ending an 11-year hiatus from the early morning gallops and racecourses, Knight took out a new trainers’ license on December 18th last year. Her assistant trainer is none other than ‘National specialist’ Brendan Powell, who won the 1988 Aintree Grand National on Rhyme ‘N’ Reason, plus a slew of other big races such as the Scottish National (1989, 1999) and two Midlands National (1996, 1999). As a trainer, he matched Knight’s tally of over 700 winners and also served his time as an assistant trainer to Joseph O’Brien for five years.

“He’s brilliant with the staff, brilliant with finding the right races, the form and the actual training side of it,” remarked Henrietta.

“Having been five years with Joseph O’Brien, everything is very fresh in Brendan’s mind. Whereas me, having been 11 years out, a lot of things I have had to catch up on and remind myself about.

“And obviously in those 11 years, the whole world, never mind the horse world, has changed so much. We’ve now become chained almost to our phones. I’m as guilty of that as anyone.

“The world has definitely changed tremendously in 11 years, including the racing world and the way social media is taking over. Sometimes it’s quite scary.

“You have to be on top of technology the whole time. And everything now is done on phones and on iPads and computers. Whereas, before in my day, it was done by a personal relationship, meeting people and the telephone. One hardly ever picks up the house telephone anymore. And the fax machine is completely covered in dust in my office.”

Artificial Intelligence nor algorithms haven’t yet replaced an innate eye for judging. Having judged a variety of breeds for decades, does she still enjoy a day in the showring?

“I love judging good horses,” is her instant response.

“I suppose, I’m a bit of a snob on what I like judging now. I love quality.

"I’ve done a lot of judging over the years, particularly in the 70s, 80s and 90s. But there’s a lot of travelling and it can become a little bit of a thankless job, because you often only please one person at the end of the class.

“I’ve taken myself off a lot of the judging panels in England because I just haven’t got the time now.”

Dublin atmosphere

Working hunter, young horses, racehorse to riding horse, Irish Draughts and of course her beloved Connemaras, are some of the classes she has judged at Dublin over the years.

“I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve judged there. I just love that show. And Clifden. I would try to get over to both, but sometimes they clash with commitments here and I can’t be away from home for so long now that I’ve taken out the training licence. I’ve got to be there even more of the time.”

On her most recent judging stint in 2022, she was in her element judging the racehorse to riding horse class with Nina Carberry and the Irish Draught classes with Frenchman Jean-Luc Dufour.

Comparing Notes: Jean-Luc Dufour and Henrietta Knight judging the Irish Draught stallions at the “magical” Dublin Horse Show \ Susan Finnerty

Connemaras/Irish Draughts – the two native breeds can be regarded as smaller or larger cousins, so the basic characteristics are often the same to a good judge.

“I think you can take a pattern right through, even from a Shetland pony upwards, they’ve got to be a stamp. A good Shetland is still a good Shetland if it moves and its conformation is square. And then you go up to the Connemara, up again to the Draught and to the thoroughbred. The principle is still the same.

“I love the Irish Draught and I think they’ve changed so much over the years to what they used to be.”

As in they’ve improved? “Oh, yes. I think the quality and the movement in the Irish Draught now has changed because basically they’re being bred for another job, for the riding side. And you’ve got to have this movement and to be athletic, compared to when they were bred for farm work. So they’ve got to be bred for another reason and I love the quality now in the Irish Draughts.”

Back to 2022 and how she made one young exhibitor’s Dublin with her friendly feedback after that Irish Draught mare class.

“I love talking to a lot of the people who are showing the horses afterwards, you know, when you get the prizes and finding out about the background. There’s lovely people in the showring and Dublin Horse Show is a wonderful cross-section of people throughout the whole world, isn’t it?

“There’s different nations and so many real horse enthusiasts. Then there are people who go to Dublin who know nothing about showing or about show jumping but they just go to Dublin Horse Show for the occasion and the atmosphere. I can’t describe Dublin to people who haven’t been there, just as you can’t really describe Cheltenham Gold Cup day to anybody who’s never been there. You have to see it for yourself… Dublin is magical.”