Cheltenham Festival Bygones: First impressions of Best Mate at Exeter justified in 2002 Gold Cup

“He thinks he’s Arkle,” she told the post-race huddle while casting admiring glances at this graceful steeplechaser who had sprinted away from his rivals to win by 20 lengths.

Little did Knight or those present – including this correspondent – appreciate the significance of this prophecy from a teacher-turned-trainer.

They had just witnessed a sublime performance – albeit over two miles on quicker than ideal ground – from Best Mate who would subsequently triumph in the Cheltenham Gold Cup in March 2002.

And the chaser, who carried the claret and blue colours of owner Jim Lewis, would ultimately become the first (and only) horse since the aforementioned Arkle to win three successive renewals of Cheltenham’s ultimate race.

Knight, who trained the strutting Best Mate with her late husband Terry Biddlecombe, the fearless Gold Cup-winning jockey, remembers the Exeter race with fondness.

Best Mate, she said, had made a winning chase debut at Exeter in the autumn of 2000 – future Grand National winner Bindaree was amongst the vanquished – and the Haldon win reaffirmed her belief in the horse after a year disrupted by foot-and-mouth. “He always knew he was good,” she told The Yorkshire Post.

Yet this confidence was not universally shared. Best Mate was surprisingly beaten on his next appearance, just failing to concede 18lb to Wahiba Sands at Ascot, before losing to the Adrian Maguire-inspired Florida Pearl in Kempton’s King George VI Chase.

It meant – to the surprise of those present at Exeter just months earlier – that Best Mate was a ‘forgotten’ horse before a wide open renewal of the 2002 Gold Cup.

What was less widely known at the time was that the fastidious Knight was incredibly superstitious before big races and would make regular visits to her local bookmaker in Wantage to place “ante-post bets on the opposition”. “I still am – very superstitious,” she told this newspaper last week. “I decided it would be an insurance to back most of the other runners. If Best Mate did not win, at least there might be some money to come back from Ladbrokes.”

She says these bets amounted to £1,000 per Gold Cup – but it was a small price to pay to help calm her nerves before a race regarded as the pinnacle of National Hunt racing.

This self-doubt – the trainer was also mourning the loss of her mother – was in complete contrast to Biddlecombe’s unflinching optimism. “Terry always knew Best Mate would stay the Gold Cup trip because he’d won a three mile point-to-point in Ireland,” said Knight.

But racing is also a team sport and, looking back, the number of people involved in the Best Mate story – and getting him to Cheltenham in the form of his life – should never be overlooked.

As Knight disclosed in her book Chasing Gold, training a horse for perfection on a designated day has its challenges. “It helps that he enjoys his exercise and is therefore a straightforward horse to get fit,” she wrote.

“Yet, sometimes on the gallops, he tends to find the work too easy and switches off more than is necessary. On these occasions, when he does not exert himself, we wonder whether we have given him enough to do.

“During February, we were indebted to Mick Channon (former footballer), who allowed us to use his grass gallops. These were designed on beautiful old downland turf and they were always on the collar, which means that they gently rise uphill all the way. Matey loved those outings.”

By her own admission, Knight’s nerves would “fray badly” before the Gold Cups: “My temper was short and Terry said I was noticeably on edge. He referred to me as being ‘toey’, and if people annoyed me, they received the sharp end of my tongue.”

But she needed no persuasion to get up at dawn on March 14, 2002, to check the 75 racehorse and assortment of other animals at West Lockinge Farm in Berkshire: “It had not been a good night; too many thoughts and too many dreams. I’d even ridden the Gold Cup myself by the time I woke up.”

One of the first people she saw was Bob Bullock who Knight described as “our highly dependable senior lad who had volunteered to stand in as nightwatchman” and stand guard over Best Mate’s box to deter any unwelcome attention or visitors.

By all accounts, recounted the trainer, the wonderfully-named Bullock “had survived his night in the caravan with his six collies and a spotlight torch – it was a nerve-racking experience, he said, and not one he wanted to repeat. For most of the night he had strained his eyes on Matey’s box and tiptoed round the barns with a dog. Not an enviable task”.

Soon, Gold Cup day became a whirlwind as Knight and Biddlecombe prepared for the races whilst acknowledging the wellwishes of so many people and fretting over their horses (Best Mate’s stablemates Lord Noelie and Go Ballistic also lined up in the Gold Cup).

Yet, at the same time, Knight’s superstitious streak was coming to the fore and she ignored big race jockey Jim Culloty: “I had not spoken to Tony McCoy when he won the Queen Mother Champion Chase on Edredon Bleu (2000), so I decided to give Best Mate’s jockey an equally wide berth.”

Knight tells me that her late husband had an abundance of experience and there was little point over-complicating the build-up. “He was the expert on tactics,” she said.

In many respects, the race itself was a rare moment of serenity because of the ease with which Best Mate travelled through the race before sealing victory with a fine jump at the last from Commanche Court and the gallant 1999 winner See More Business.

Knight watched the race in a press tent behind the paddock – this would become another ritual – and, for many, the defining image of the day is her emotional embrace with a sobbing Biddlecombe when they finally met in a maelstrom immediately after the race.

For Knight, however, it was a telephone call that evening as she returned home. It was from the Queen Mother, a longstanding family friend, who wanted to pass on her congratulations and ask a number of questions about the race. It was made more poignant by the Queen Mother’s death the following month.

This year Knight believes the Davy Russell-ridden Galvin – winner of the Grade One Savills Chase at Leopardstown – is the horse to beat.

Owned by her great friend Ronnie Bartlett, she says Galvin has an abundance of stamina after winning the National Hunt Chase at Cheltenham last year and that Russell is the ultimate horseman.

But she says it will take a special horse to replicate the feats of Best Mate before adding that she enjoys her status as the only trainer alive today to have won three successive Gold Cups with the same horse and that she hopes this feat stands the test of time.