Knight savoured Precious Cheltenham win for Metal

Henrietta Knight was delighted to register a first victory at her beloved Cheltenham since her return to the training ranks – despite being at Southwell when Precious Metal stormed to success on New Year’s Day.

The 78-year-old has a long association with Prestbury Park, having saddled Best Mate to land a hat-trick of Gold Cups between 2002 and 2004 and also picked up the Queen Mother Champion Chase with Edredon Bleu amongst seven Cheltenham Festival winners during her first spell with a licence.

She quit training in 2012, but made a shock return in January 2024, recruiting Grand National-winning rider and former handler Brendan Powell to assist with operations at her West Lockinge yard.

Victories had proved hard to come by for Knight early in her comeback, as she prioritised nurturing her young stock, but her string are beginning to garner the experience required to make their mark – with Precious Metal’s victory testament to the hours of tutelage provided by the distinguished trainer.

The four-year-old’s victory in the Listed bumper was her first at Cheltenham since Calgary Bay scored on the same New Year’s Day card in 2012, but Knight was at Southwell cheering on Motazzen as he notched up a quick-fire hat-trick.

She said: “I ended up at Southwell as I owned part of the horse that won there and the other part-owners were going, so I went along to support him.

“I would obviously have loved to have been at Cheltenham but Brendan does so much of the training of the horses and is absolutely brilliant with what he does here, he’s so experienced and I was delighted he was there to enjoy it.

“Cheltenham is my favourite course for the Best Mate reasons and I have been very lucky there. I think you are lucky in certain places and not so much others – my most unlucky course is Chepstow.

“Since I’ve come back, it has been quite difficult getting the horses going, as they are all novices and I didn’t have any handicapped horses in the yard, so we had to start from scratch really.

“But I like training young horses and we’ve got some very nice young horses in the yard – and I hope they will continue to acquit themselves well on the racecourse.

“It’s great to be back and hopefully we can continue in a similar vein now.”

Precious Metal was given a fine ride by Lilly Pinchin to show her rivals a clean pair of heels in the Cotswolds, reversing the form of his Wincanton debut and announcing himself as a smart prospect.

The youngster was handed a quote of 40-1 by Paddy Power for the Champion Bumper in March but although Knight is not ruling out a run at the Festival, it appears more likely he may be seen at Aintree or elsewhere in the spring.

“We will put him aside and give him a bit of a break now while we see what we want to do,” continued Knight.

“We will probably give him one more run in March or April. I think he might be too young to go to the Festival and I know four-year-olds have run in the race, but they tend to get swamped by the older horses.

“He could go there, or he might go to Aintree – or he could just go for a Listed bumper somewhere where he gets a four-year-old allowance. He will have one more run before going over hurdles next season.”