Nick and Elektron at Badminton 2011
An established and successful event rider on the four star circuit, Nick laughs when he describes how he started riding, and what might have been,
"Neither of my parents are horsey at all; when I was 11 or 12 my sister said she wanted to go for riding lessons or trampolining, she wasn't really bothered which she wanted to do - couldn't life have been different?!
I was dragged along to a riding stables, and rode at weekends for about five years, and progressed, as I think lots of people do, to helping out after we'd ridden, although I don't suppose in the beginning we were much help at all!
I carried on from there, and then I got a horse on loan from a local livery yard. All of Dad's family apart from his parents were farmers, and when my sister and I got quite keen and quite serious about the riding, he bought where we are now, about 17 years ago.
Dad works from home here, and his light relief was driving the tractor and making a bit of hay, and keeping a few sheep.
They put up five stables for us, and I can quite clearly remember Mum saying, 'Well, hang on, you've got a pony, and you're sister's got a pony, why are we putting up five stables, you're never going to need five stables?'"
However, Nick and his dad kept expanding, and the small yard that was, is now a thriving enterprise,
"Now I think we have 43 boxes here...we've just sort of kept going! Every time I have a spare five minutes or some down time I quite enjoy building or demolishing or trying to make something better, I'm very good at starting projects, I'm not always the best at finishing them; if you walk around the place there's about half a dozen projects that are nearly finished! Dad and I just kept building, Dad gets on the digger and we do bits and pieces as we go along, so most of it is our handiwork, and most of it seems to stay there for a while. Dad and I did a lot of the base for the gallops and the arena, and then Martin Collins came in and put the surface on top for us."
The latest addition is a state-of-the-ar
t Cold Salt Hydrotherapy Spa, for which Nick and his dad take no responsibility for building, but Nick gave a lot of thought before investing into it,
"We had a horse that had a bit of time off with a leg injury and after talking to the vet we looked into the hydrotherapy, as we'd been advised he might have come back a bit quicker with that treatment. We've had a few horses use it now, and we've been sent some racehorses just to re-hab and things like that, so it's starting to pay for itself. The plan is that as the event horses do harder work they'll use it too. The way our sport is progressing, while we've lost the Roads and Tracks and Steeplechase from the sport, it means that perhaps the horses don't work as hard in one competition but they're expected to do more competitions and we want them to last longer, and I think that anything we can do to prolong their careers is a good thing. Horses are so expensive now, and we form a huge bond and relationship with them, and at the end of the day towards the end of their career is probably when they're at their best, so if we can give them an extra year, or even an extra run, hopefully it's going to be at a big competition that's going to be successful."
Rocket Science is a horse coming back after a year off, and depending on how the entries play out, may be one of two potential Badminton rides for Nick this spring,
" Rocket Science is borderline on points because of the year off, but he's fit and working amazingly well, I'm really excited about how well he's come back, it would be great if he got in. I've also got a lovely horse called Penguin Ice who was in the top 10 at Bramham in the spring last year, and we were going to take him to Pau, and I just thought actually he was only 9 years old and I didn't want to push him too much too soon, so we finished him after Blair CIC***. He might go to Badminton, or he might do another three star, I haven't decided yet, so I might have two rides this year, or I might have nothing!"
Nick's Chalet at Badminton
Living a stone's throw away from Badminton, the event will always hold a special place in his heart,
"I will never forget, I rode a little horse called Calibre around my first Badminton, and I was always 'local rider', and God, it feels amazing when you gallop back into that arena having jumped clear around Badminton with everyone cheering. It is more pressure, but it's not like a tiny bit more pressure makes any difference anyway because you put so much on yourself already because it's Badminton! For me, competing at Badminton feels a little more special than competing at Burghley for example, because it's the event on the doorstep. I was in the Beaufort Hunt Pony Club and I was a Pony Club runner there, and I remember looking up at those cross-country fences and wondering how anyone could possibly jump them. Badminton is always very special to me; I've hunted through the park, I know most of the fence judges because they're Pony Club mums or people in the local Hunt or something like that, so it's always special. It's an amazing place to compete, and I'm sure anyone who lives close to Burghley, or Kentucky for you guys has exactly the same connection to it. It would be a real shame if I didn't feel anything for the place."
It's general knowledge that Nick had expected to be riding the stallion Chilli Morning at Badminton this year, a horse he's brought up through the grades from a five year old to a clear round at Burghley CCI**** last autumn, but who was moved by owner Chris Stone to Mary King's programme a couple of weeks ago,
"I'm heartbroken, I'm really, really sad, but I've had a lot of fun with the horse, he's an amazing horse. We've won a lot together, we've been through a lot together, and life goes on. I think the horse is set up for a great Badminton and I think Mary should do very, very well on him and I wish her every success. Chili had a bit of a tendon injury in Luhmuhlen, and he came back and jumped really well around Burghley CCI**** last year, albeit for a few time faults. His owner felt that I shouldn't have had those, and wanted to try somebody that had a proven track record of being fast across country so he's with Mary. Personally, I think as a stepping stone Burghley was just what he needed and I'd like to think that I could have been very competitive at Badminton, but Mary's awesome and she'll produce the goods, I'm sure she will. I found the horse as a five year old with Peter Thompsen in Germany, and I've produced him all this way through; I've done it before and I can do it again. It is heartbreaking but I've had so many people 'phone me, and email me, and text me saying how sorry they are, so taking the positives from it, it's amazing that feelings run that deep, and that people I barely know, (even some of Mary's owners) emailed me which has been really touching, and lovely."
Nick still has the ride on a 2-year-old by Chilli Morning that he rates highly, and hasn't ruled out eventing another stallion by any means,
"I'd love to have a stallion again, the difficult thing is the amount of money that a horse like Chili costs even as a five year old is more than I've got. He's an amazing horse, and I'd not had much to do with stallions in the past and he was such an easy horse to have around. He was like a gelding really, you could almost forget sometimes that he was a stallion, so for me to have another one he would have to be as nice as Chili and fit in to a yard that's not set up to have difficult stallions as well as he did. I do think as well, that there are enough stallions around that to have a difficult one with a bad temperament would be silly. One day I'd love to have another one because I've really enjoyed it, and I've learned a lot about the breeding side, and potentially which combinations might go together well to make a nice event horse, but we'll see..."
Nick has had help over the years from Pammy Hutton on the flat, and has more recently started going to Ian Woodhead. For jumping he credits Yogi Breisner with helping him enormously, and lately Roland Ferneyhough. At competitions he tries not to let stress get the better of him,
"I'd like to think I'm quite laid back, but at the same time I think nerves are quite healthy. Definitely I get nervous before somewhere like Badminton and I think that anybody that said they didn't would be lying! Hopefully you deal with those nerves in the right way and they make you focus so you ride better for it."
The Happy Couple: Nick and Amanda
On Christmas Day last year, Nick sent out what may have been the sweetest and most romantic tweet I've yet to read, announcing some very happy news,
Amanda works in the Polo equivalent of British Eventing, and has a background in race-riding, point-to-pointing, and Pony Club, as Nick adds,
"Anybody who was going to put up with me would have to like horses and understand that they take up a great deal of my time."
I'd like to thank Nick profusely for taking up so much of his time myself, and wish him the very best of luck this year, especially as the season draws to a close, and it's not The Wedding that looms, but the Stag do!
"I have told myself that I'm not going to get nervous about it! Francis (Whittington) having just been best man to Chris King, and as ringleader of the three of us was reasonably cruel to Chris, and of course I had nothing to do with it! The worst of it was the psychological torture that he went through beforehand, and so I've told myself that hopefully they're not going to do anything really dreadful; whatever it is I'm going to have to put up with it and get on with it!"
Many congratulations to Nick and Amanda, many thanks to Nick and Tiana for talking to Eventing Nation, and many thanks for reading. Go Eventing!
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