In the original dustsheet. Turquoise cloth binding with gilt title on the spine.

• F.B.A. provides an in-depth photographic presentation of this item to stimulate your feeling and touch. More traditional book descriptions are immediately available.

Two images immortalize the 2003 Cheltenham Festival: the brilliant Best Mate sprinting clear in the Gold Cup, and trainer Henrietta Knight embracing husband Terry Biddlecombe in a celebration, not just of victory but of life itself. This is Henrietta’s own story on the horse and the hug. Best Mate is the most exciting racehorse in the world. His string of successes, culminating in back-to-back Cheltenham Gold Cup wins, have made him a TV superstar. In telling the horse’s story – from a rain-soaked foal stranded on an Irish hillside to the big, bold and ballet-supple athlete who now pitches for a third Gold Cup – Henrietta has also recounted her own romantic tale. How she, an aristocratic former school teacher, met Terry Biddlecombe, the Prince Hall of his own champion jockey era, thus forging a rock solid if rather implausible double act that has been so instrumental in helping each through their difficult times. Working with “Sunday Times” journalist Andrew Longmore, Henrietta Knight has produced an interesting insight into the making of a champion and the shared dreams that sustain those around him.

Reviews:

• A nice surprise. So many autobiographies/biographies in the racing world are poorly written and amount to merely lists of races and wins. I found this book warmly written with a good racing/personal balance. I enjoyed the amount of information it offered about the world of National Hunt.

• Henrietta writes from the heart & the story is a part of racing history. A jolly good read for anyone interested in wonderful horses &/or National Hunt racing.

Henrietta Catherine Knight (born 15 December 1946) is a retired English Thoroughbred racehorse trainer. Knight is best known as a trainer of National Hunt racehorses. She is the daughter of Major Hubert Guy Broughton Knight (1917–1993) and Hester Loyd. Her sister, Celia Elizabeth Knight (1949–2020), was married to Samuel Vestey, 3rd Baron Vestey. An Oxford graduate, Knight worked as a biology and history teacher before becoming a trainer. She was a prominent figure in the equestrian sport of eventing, finishing 12th at the Badminton Horse Trials in 1973, and becoming the chairperson of the British Olympic Games Horse Trials Selection Committee from 1984 to 1988. This period included the selection of the Silver medal-winning team for the Seoul Olympics.

Knight began training under rules in 1989 having previously trained over 100 winners on the amateur point-to-point circuit from 1984 to 1989. Her training base was a farm in West Lockinge, near Wantage in Oxfordshire.

Knight married former champion National Hunt jockey Terry Biddlecombe in 1995 and has no children. Biddlecombe died on 5 January 2014. Knight trained the triple Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Best Mate, and the Queen Mother Champion Chase winner Edredon Bleu. Both horses also won the King George VI Chase and were owned by Jim and Valerie Lewis.

Among her other stable stars were Calgary Bay, who won the Dipper Chase at Cheltenham in January 2009, Somersby, who won the Grade 1 Victor Chandler Chase at Ascot in 2012 after impressing many in the top novice events at the Aintree and Cheltenham Festivals, and Racing Demon, the winner of the Peterborough Chase at Huntingdon Racecourse in 2006 and 2007.

Knight retired in 2012. In November 2023, she announced that she would be returning to training.

Knight is the author of five books: Best Mate: Chasing Gold (2003); Best Mate: Triple Gold (2004); Not Enough Time – My Life with Terry Biddlecombe (2015); The Jumping Game (2019); Starting from Scratch: Inspired to be a Jump Jockey (2019).