Kate Johnson

Born in Australia and bought up in the Midlands with Labradors and a succession of ponies and horses, including a lovely dun Connemara, so placid he didn’t even blink when he caught his rug on the stable door, twisting it clean off its hinges, as he made his way to his manger, Kate has ridden since she was six, mainly with the North Staffs branch of the Pony Club, as well as hunting and some very amateurish competing.

She graduated from Leeds University and lived in Australia and then New York for several years, before returning to the UK and becoming an award-winning radio producer for the BBC and documentary producer for Channel 4 after which she became a freelance journalist, contributing to the Daily Mail, The Times, The Telegraph and others.

Her life was miraculously changed forever when she took on the beautiful, soulful National Hunt racehorse, Stop the Show, on his retirement eleven years ago, having fallen madly in love with him when she rode him badly in a charity race at Cheltenham. It was a momentous day in the racing calendar as it was the same day that Frankel raced his last on 20 October 2012 at Ascot.

In 2023, Kate collaborated with the National Hunt Champion Trainer Nicky Henderson OBE, to write his best-selling memoir, Nicky Henderson: My Life in 12 Horses.