"I know I got a bit emotional yesterday, but I did too when I won the Gold Cup when I rode. But it takes a man to cry, doesn't it."The joy of this business is working with such a good horse, and having your belief justified. It means so much to everyone on this place, all the staff, the brilliant owner, everyone. We all did it, thanks to that star of a horse."Best Mate will not run again until the autumn. The seven-year-old's next public appearance pencilled in is the Haldon Gold Cup at Exeter in November, over a mile shorter than Thursday's victory."We wouldn't dream of asking such a young horse to run again this season," said Knight, still floating about the stable yard on cloud nine.

"He is sure to improve and strengthen up so there is no point in rushing him. The horse's future is all there in front of him for the taking."Fans of this game should be lucky that Best Mate is a racehorse, for this handsome, noble individual could have excelled at any discipline. And indeed, he has regular sessions of flatwork in the indoor school, like a dressage horse. The effect such suppling exercise has on his balance was evident to all at Cheltenham."He is a horse without flaws," said Knight, "He could win at Badminton, over solid fences, or in the show ring, or in the dressage arena."The gang was all there yesterday. Assistant Bridget Nicholls, Alexia Lovett, who does the dressage schooling, Andy Fox the head lad, Bob Bullock, who sat up all night guarding the horses the week before the Festival, vet Roger Bettridge, Jim Culloty with his mum and dad Donal and Maureen over from Co Kerry, secretary Chris Douglas-Home, all of them bursting with pride in their boy – could ever a horse be better-named – and a job well done.Lord Vestey, chairman of Cheltenham and Knight's brother-in-law, dropped in and the champagne came out in the farmouse kitchen, with a picture of Biddlecombe on his Gold Cup winner Woodland Venture looking down from the wall at the happy gathering 35 years on. "I used to be good at this," said Knight, as she spilled the fizz on the old oak table.There is a certain ritual that has to be properly addressed when visiting West Lockinge Farm.

If you give Best Mate the half-packet of Polo mints you promised him if he won the Gold Cup, you have to share them with Edredon Bleu, in the next box along, otherwise his feelings get hurt.Little house it ain't (the Knight family estate is an early Georgian mansion, farmhouse and cottages) and for prairie you have to read Oxfordshire downland.But the comfortable feeling is there. And hey, it means nothing to them, but why not kiss a pair of handsome horses on their black-velvet noses Goodnight Blue, see you in April Goodnight Matey, see you next season.. Alessandro Petacchi snatched victory from Laurent Jalabert as the fifth stage of the Paris-Nice ended in a dramatic sprint finish yesterday. Jalabert, in second place overall, appeared to have timed his burst to perfection as the peloton rounded the final bend en masse in the Toulon-Cannes stage. But as he moved to his right Petacchi exploded down the middle to take the stage win by less than a bike's length. The tightly-packed finish limited the chances of movement in the overall standings, with leader Alexandre Vinokourov losing just one of the six seconds he had on Jalabert.In Frosinone, Italy's Paolo Bettini beat the overall leader Erik Zabel by two seconds to win the second stage of the Tirreno-Adriatico race, but the German Telekom rider retains the lead.. Mike Corby, the president of the English Hockey Association, has given further details of the financial crisis facing the Association. Corby expressed concern that the cash reserves would be insufficient to continue trading without extraordinary action being taken to stabilise the position.Explaining how the position had occurred, Corby said, was complex: "At the heart of the problem was concern regarding prior year accounting processes and procedures which would have been expected to have flagged the position sooner." It would also appear that there had been gross overspending of budgets in certain areas.

Already up to 15 staff redundancies have been announced, with the closure of half of the 10 regional offices.Meanwhile, hockey continues. Last week's double header for the Women's Premier clubs brought a set of unpredictable results, with no team managing two wins The clubs face another double header this weekend. Slough, the new leaders after Leicester managed just one point last week, travel to third placed Clifton today and entertain Canterbury tomorrow. Leicester will need to be at their best today when they visit Olton and West Warwick, currently in fourth place and entertain struggling Hightown tomorrow.. Earlier this week, Canada's former Olympic 100 metres champion Donovan Bailey was pictured on the steps of Parliament House in Ottawa holding up something which looked like a silver Indian club. The problem has emerged not in Canada, or Jamaica, or Barbados, or Dominica, or St Lucia, or Trinidad and Tobago, or Ghana, or Nigeria, or Kenya, or Uganda, or Tanzania, or South Africa, or Australia, or New Zealand, or Fiji, or Tonga, or Brunei, or Malaysia, or Singapore, or Sri Lanka, or India, or Malta, or even Sierra Leone.The problem has emerged – have you guessed it already? – in Hertford. You see, what the Tory executive on East Herts District Council has very smartly recognised, something which seems to have escaped the rest of the Commonwealth, is that this Baton business could be inconvenient, and what's more, it may not even afford the opportunity of making money.Let's be specific here.