Charles Knight II; Newspaperman, Horse Breeder

Charles Landon Knight II, 75, a horseman and a newsman of the Knight-Ridder Newspapers family. Knight was one of three sons of the late Akron Beacon Journal and Knight-Ridder editor emeritus John S. Knight. Charles Knight owned and operated Portage Newspaper Supply, which sold printing and graphics supplies to newspapers. As a young man, he worked as a journalist, starting as a police reporter at the Port Huron Times Herald in Michigan. He later became assistant Sunday editor and assistant picture editor at the Detroit Free Press and returned to Akron in 1959 after working at Life magazine. He worked in several Beacon Journal departments, including circulation, production, advertising and business, but in 1981 retired from the newspaper to devote his time to horse breeding. In 1997, Knight won the English Derby with Benny the Dip, who had career earnings of $1.2 million. He also owned Tougaloo, a three-time winner of the Rose DeBartolo Memorial Handicap. On Saturday in Akron, Ohio, of pneumonia.