To the description ‘talented’, we can now add ‘tough’ of amateur rider Olive Nicholls.
This article first appeared in the Racing Post on Thursday 11th January.
The second of Paul Nicholls’ four children and daughter of Georgina Nicholls, who last summer regained a trainers' licence, Olive (pictured above with Viroflay) was a good bet for success once she inherited the family passion for horses. Her older half-sister Megan was a novice champion point-to-point rider, became a professional jockey and is now an agent and broadcaster; her younger sister Zara is a talented junior showjumper, while half-brother Henry is just two. Who knows, he might prefer tractors?
At home with sister Zara, 13, who Olive reckons has a big future as a showjuimper
Via a mix of point-to-points and races under rules, Olive's riding career has been progressing along the sort of lines that might have been expected of someone with such a background. Following a famous parent into their profession gives cynics a reason to cast around for banana skins, but talent will out, and at 18 Nicholls shows a heap of quality in the saddle. She also has a two-from-two record as a trainer of point-to-pointers.
Her mum, a former amateur rider who can look back fondly and still with some surprise on a 100-1 Stratford success riding Game Gunner in the 2001 end-of-season ladies’ hunter chase, says: “Olive sees no danger and is happy to fire one in and fill the horse with confidence – the horses seem to like it, but as a mother it’s not much fun. It’s the game she’s in and if you thought too much about it you would never go to watch.”
The amateur sport has given Olive a quantity of rides she could not have reached by this date if relying solely on spins under rules, even with trainers for parents. Now in her third season of riding in point-to-points, she says: “The standard is pretty high, but there are the odd moments when you know it’s a point-to-point.
"You have to be aware of what’s going on around you, but you take riders like James King, Zac Baker and Will Biddick and they are virtually professionals. Gina Andrews is amazing. Beating her by a neck when I rode Shantou Flyer and Gina was on Latenightpass at the start of last season felt surreal. The season before I was a novice looking up to her, and there I was competing alongside her.”
Latenightpass (far side) is just touched off by Shantou Flyer
On New Year’s Eve, the progress hit a pothole when Olive dislocated a collarbone in a fall at Larkhill, but, unaware of the injury and high on adrenaline, she passed the course doctor and rode the winner of the next race. That is why we can now add tough to adjectives highlighting her abilities.
That victory came on Viroflay, a horse owned by her dad and his friend John Bolton, who also sponsored the race. They gave the prize-money too the he air ambulance, not the first time Nicholls snr has shown benevolence towards point-to-pointing, the sport in which he first pulled on colours and gained early lessons in training.
Georgina is a fan of the sport, too, saying: “Point- to-pointing gives riders experience over fences. If you turn conditional without riding in points you're missing out. If Olive decides to turn conditional she could have had some 200 rides and crossed over 2,000 fences. That experience is invaluable. When you ride under rules you are under much tougher scrutiny – every race is on television and if things go wrong everyone can see it.
“With a Cat B licence [to compete against professionals] Olive can ride in point-to-points and most races under rules, and after rolling around in the dirt at Hereford the pro jockeys seemed to regard her as okay.”
Her daughter expects to miss a month’s racing while the collarbone heals, but Viroflay, who she trains from stables adjacent to her mum’s Oxfordshire yard, gives her a reason to put down the mobile phone and the unending lure of reels, friends’ adventures and gossip, and get up each morning.
Viroflay and Olive in action this season (Tim Holt)
Olive says of the seven-year-old: “I think he’s going to be very special. He’s still inexperienced having missed two years through a leg injury, but each time he’s run in a race he feels stronger and more clued up.
“I think he would love the trip and conditions at Aintree [in the Randox Foxhunters’ Chase] as long as it’s not too soft. Last year his jumping was good, but a bit too brave and silly at times. This year he feels so much more mature. It would be a big dream of mine to ride him in that race.”
In the meantime, Viroflay is entered in Saturday’s Coronation Gold Cup mixed open race at Larkhill, one of the point-to-point season’s four ‘classics’. With Olive currently sidelined, Will Biddick is expected to take the ride if the horse runs.
Olive finished school last summer and now spends two days a week at Ditcheat, the village where she lived until she was ten and her parents separated. A small child when her father’s yard was enjoying a golden period with such stars as Big Buck’s, Kauto Star and Denman, she says: “I didn’t go racing very often at that time, but I remember the parades through the village with Kauto and Big Buck’s. Since I was about two, Big Buck’s was my favourite and I’ve always had a portrait of him above my bed.
“It was the same when Neptune Collonges won the Grand National [when she was six]. Dad had worked so hard and until then had not had a National winner. It was a huge box to tick, and when the horse was back at the yard and everyone could celebrate together it felt bigger to me than winning the race.”
Olive has enjoyed the privileges that come with being the daughter of a champion trainer, although it has not always been easy.
Olive Nicholls with parents Paul and Georgina and Viroflay
“There's a lot of pressure, not just from other people, but from myself," she explains. "There are times when it’s tough, but I’ve learned so much from my parents and I’m lucky to do things alongside Dad and see the ins and outs at a big yard.
“Racing is its own world, but as I got older at school, and especially in the final two years, I had friends who went racing and could see into our world. I was still at school in March when I rode [the Sam Loxton-trained] Shantou Flyer [to finish third in the St James’s Place Festival Hunters’ Chase], and the sixth form watched it on a screen.
“Back at school the following Monday they had realised I wasn’t just riding around on ponies. All my schoolfriends were supportive and the school was lenient. I was worried they might be a bit, ‘Oh, she’s not in again’, but it wasn’t like that.”
The Friday at last year’s festival is a memorable blur for Olive.
“Nothing has compared to that day," she says. "I was watching the Gold Cup and it suddenly hit me – 'Oh my God, I’m doing that in a minute'. I don’t remember much about it. It was such a buzz. I was so revved. When I went back to Cheltenham’s evening May meeting to ride Shantou Flyer in the four-miler, I said to Hannah, who was leading him up, ‘Do you remember much about the last time we were here?’
“Mum and others had said, ‘Go wide and just enjoy it’, but before the race I walked the course with Mick Fitzgerald. He asked ‘Do you want to win it?’ and I said, ‘Yes, of course’, so we walked round with that in mind.
“I told Mum, ‘Yes, I’m just going out to enjoy it and I’ll be keeping out of trouble’, but I went up the inner, the gaps kept coming and Shantou ran an amazing race. I don’t think Mum would have let me ride if she had known my plan.
“Jump racing is what I love – it’s such a thrill, and every time I go out for a race I’m reminded of why I do it. Especially on days like Cheltenham and Aintree, but I still get a buzz going to a point-to- point. To ride Viroflay around Larkhill is as good as riding Magic Saint at Aintree.”
