Not Enough Time by Henrietta Knight

Author:Henrietta Knight [Knight, Henrietta]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781784971328
Publisher: Head of Zeus

CHAPTER ELEVEN

A Passion for Cheltenham

When Terry and I began to share the training of our racehorses, we were rewarded by plenty of winners. Looking back, people will say that we were primarily known for the training of Best Mate to win three Cheltenham Gold Cups, and Edredon Bleu to win the Champion Chase and the King George VI Chase. However, we did achieve many other successes with horses of varying degrees of talent – maybe not stars, but, nevertheless, consistent and rewarding at their own level.

However, right from the beginning, it was the victories at Cheltenham Racecourse that gave us the greatest thrills. It is the mecca of National Hunt racing and had always been Terry’s favourite course. He had a number of victories at Prestbury Park, as well as his fair share of down days. The racecourse is set like an amphitheatre beneath Cleeve Hill, and on festival days the atmosphere is electric. It mesmerises racegoers. The excitement and thrills are so addictive that fans return to see the action year after year.

Terry was Gloucestershire born and bred and he always had a host of local well-wishers. Even when he returned to the racecourse in his later years, his public still welcomed him with open arms, and Cheltenham pulled Terry to it like a magnet is pulled to an iron bar.

However, its significance to me was slightly different. It was at Cheltenham races in October 1993 that I spent that memorable day with my future husband. The year I fell in love with him.

In my teenage days, I remember seeing Terry’s name – T. BIDDLECOMBE – on the old number board beside the weighing room, painted in bold white letters on black wood. There were no electronic screens in those days. When Terry retired from racing at Cheltenham in 1974, he was given that board and I now have it hanging up in my office at West Lockinge Farm. I will treasure it for ever. On that historic day when Terry hung up his boots, his last race was aboard Amarind in the Cathcart Chase. He was a big, strong chestnut horse from the USA, trained by Fulke Walwyn. He finished fifth. Richard Pitman won the race on Soothsayer, a gorgeous-looking dark-bay steeplechaser also from America trained by Fred Winter. Richard remembers walking down the chute to the main racecourse. It was lined with Terry Biddlecombe well-wishers, so he took a pull on his horse and let Terry lead the runners out onto the track. The crescendo of cheers from both sides of the course was deafening, like a Mexican wave. Many thousands of racegoers had stayed behind to witness Terry’s retirement ride. He was the A. P. McCoy of his day. The public adored him.

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Back in 1967, Woodland Venture won the Cheltenham Gold Cup with Terry in the saddle. The horse was trained by Fred Rimell. It gave Terry a day to cherish for the rest of his life, but the race had almost been a non-starter for him, thanks to a bad fall the previous day from Glenn in the Cotswold Chase.

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