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Just wondered what peoples thoughts on hen knight were. Her stable always seems to be out of form. Although she had a treble yesterday – yes there are in form now but how long will it last.
I would not send my horses to her.
For an ex- biology & history teacher (and Oxford graduate to boot), she’s not a bad trainer.
If I had horses, I would have no hesitation whatsoever in sending one or two… or maybe even three of them to her.
Best Mate, Edredon Bleu, Racing Demon and Impek have done not too badly under her guidance. She definitely knows what she is doing.
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She is a trainer who was thrust into the spotlight with one horse – Best Mate – as opposed to continual success with multiple horses. I suppose you could argue that for a trainer who trained a triple-Gold Cup winning horse, the subsequent years have been a bit disappointing, more in terms of the horses she has at her disposal than anything else. I don’t know if that is a conscious decision by her to limit the number of horses she wants to train or what. However, her horse are almost always impeccably schooled although more than her fair share display a tendency to jump to the right (but this may be my imagination)
Surely she has to be rated highly in the first place to be considered over-rated
She strikes me as an extremely nice person – well, you’d have to be to put up with Biddlecombe – and there’s no doubting that she can handle a decent chaser, but I object to the way she generally runs horses first time out.
Just wondered what peoples thoughts on hen knight were. Her stable always seems to be out of form. Although she had a treble yesterday – yes there are in form now but how long will it last.
I would not send my horses to her.
A bit contradictory that statement. Her stable always seems to be out of form…. she had a treble yesterday…. yes she is in form now
I know exactly what you meant though and I wasn’t having a dig at the above, I just found it amusing (but it doesn’t take much for me).
I think the problem is that she doesn’t have hundreds of horses and therefore when she only has 4 or 5 winners a month it looks like she is out of form, because she is perceived by some as a top trainer becuase of the horses she has had in the past.
I would sum her up as a trainer who bides her time with her horses so if you were an owner and wanted to send her a horse you would have to be on the patient side. She loves her chasers, and when her yard hits top form, her chasers really are worth following.
Mike
suppose the stable is terribly out of form in that they havn’t trained a Gold Cup or King George winner for quite a while….and when was the last time someone trained the Gold Cup winner 3 years running?
Long periods of sustained success with Best Mate and Edredon Bleu coupled with the ability to glean wins out of Harris Bay who’s wind problems are apparently dreadful indicate an extremely competant trainer. It would be my opinion that in no way is she overrated as a trainer.
She’s far from overrated – the term overrated is overrated!
As previously stated, she doesn’t have a particularly large string, but what she lacks in quantity, she made up with quality.
This was clearly advertised on Saturday with Mous of Men, Quarry Town and Calgary Bay. Three well bred, good looking five-year olds with a bright future ahead of them over fences.
Calgary Bay is an absolutely gorgeous animal. The similarities between him and Best Mate are scary. Miss Knight has publicly stated that this horse is going to be a star – a three time Gold Cup winner emerged the last time she made this kind of statement. A decent EW bet for the Festival.
I can’t think of a better trainer to bring along a young horse to enable it to fulfill its potential. Jim Lewis has gone down in my estimation for abandoning her after all the success they’ve had together.
I don’t know the politics of Jim Lewis using a different trainer, but perhaps with losing Best Mate and then tragically his wife so soon afterwards he just needed a change….I used to be slightly irritated by all the singing etc when Best Mate won, but I was at Cheltenham the day of Best Mate’s ‘funeral’ and I cried my eyes out…he seems like a really sound guy to me….
I’m aware he’s sent a few horses to Paul Nicholls. He still has horses in-training with Henrietta, so I don’t think he’s ‘abandoned’ her.
David Johnson has sent her a few decent recruits, so it’s not all doom and gloom.
it was Paul Barber who discovered Breedsbreeze, so it would have been difficult for Mr. Lewis to send him to another stable…
Lewis was quoted in the Independent today as saying words to the effect of "she just hasn’t offered me any horses lately", denying they had gone their seperate ways.
Interpret that however you will.
I have a share in a horse with Hen (or Hen & Terry as Mr Biddlecombe insists on!) and must say her set up is excellent and she looks after her horses exceptionally well. It’s possible that she’s a little too patient with her charges but she absolutely dotes on them and it’s worth remembering that training racehorses is also about welfare and good husbandry as well as about winning titles. Jim Lewis was down at the owners open day as usual and there certainly isn’t a falling out per se but he only has one horse in training and that one is looking unlikely to be persevered with beyond this year.
I was lucky enough to be at the yard to watch my horse work at the time when Calgary Bay’s was due to so some early schooling over poles and fell in love with him immediately ~ he hadn’t been named then but I made sure I scoured the bumper entries for a Taipan 4yo. He really is the most impressive looking animal and needs fences to be seen at his best.
david,
You say she hasn’t had the continual success but she’s had Edredon Bleu, Best Mate, Impek & Racing Demon over the past 10 years.
The only reason I would think twice before sending a horse to her is because I’d want my charge campaigned more aggressively.
This thread stinks of that animosity that seemed to be around for some reason during the Best Mate era…
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