Nickie Sheppard, who was responsible for 2023/2024 leading horse Grace A Vous Enki as well as the exciting Ihandaya, trains point-to-pointers at Eastnor in Herefordshire – where husband Matt holds a rules licence – alongside her duties as joint-secretary of the West Mercian Area.
They both rode successfully in their day, and Matt was the named trainer of the pointers when they moved to Eastnor 30 years ago, before turning professional in 1996. Jake Exelby visited the couple in advance of the new season to learn about their background, find out how Nickie reinvigorated ‘Eric’ last year and discover whether a repeat might be on the cards.
Nickie and Matt with Grace A Vous Enki (Caroline Exelby)
“I was one of the first pointing trainers to take out a licence,” confirms Matt, as we watch Nickie (on A Jet Of Our Own) lead five of her strong round the picturesque gallops in front of Eastnor Castle (following Nickie are Charlotte Trealeven [Yippee Ki Yay], Laura Wallis [Grace A Vous Enki], Daisy Cardew [Blackijo Dagrostis], Lucy Lightwood [Ihandaya] and Libby Gleeson [Nelson Tasmin]). “We both ride out – sharing five lots between us and do everything ourselves. We’re flexible and have lots of part-time staff. It’s easier for part-timers to come and ride out – jockeys find it hard to ride out in the mornings when they’re racing that afternoon.”
Nickie leading her string through the autumn foliage (Caroline Exelby)
Matt explains how the couple became the first people to train on the Eastnor Estate. “We got married in 1993 and were looking for somewhere to live. (Former PPORA Chair) Robert Killen was the agent at Forthampton, where Nickie’s parents lived, and he found it for us. We use the gallops and schooling fences on the estate land – these are our facilities, and I think I’m the only licenced trainer not to have an all-weather gallop, so we have to go on the grass all year round.”
The Sheppard gallops and fences with Eastnor Castle as a backdrop (Caroline Exelby)
“I originally went professional because the pointing season was shorter then, I needed to earn money and didn’t want to keep working in the Sun Valley chicken factory!” admits Matt. “I used the money from my shiftwork to buy breeze blocks and built the stables myself. Nickie was head groom. We used to send our pointers under rules for the summer jumping but do it less now as it’s so much more competitive – the prize money is higher, so you have runners from trainers chasing the championship.”
Back in the yard and over coffee, we talk about the horses that have been part of the Sheppard story. “The first winners we trained were a double in March 1994,” recalls Matt. “Nickie won on Deer Fencer at Barbury (it was her first victory in the saddle), and I went to Upton-on-Severn and scored with Knowing.” Other stalwarts of the early years included the likes of Cruise A Hoop, Lets Twist Again, Master Eryl, Now We Know and Stag Fight. Horses like that kicked it off pretty well for us. They were owned by local people and local syndicates – you need that kind of support in pointing and it helped that (former multiple champion jockey) Julian Pritchard rode them. You could get involved in a syndicate for little money then, but you need to spend more now if you want a nice horse, and you can’t win races with moderate horses any more.”
Another well-known pointer for the Sheppards – and Nickie’s first champion horse, 20 years before her second, was Upton Adventure, who took the title by winning eight races (out of a career total of 26) in 2004. “She was a pony – barely 16 hands,” reminisces Nickie. “Anyone who came here for a day’s trial would ride her and – on the track – she’d only turn into a racehorse in the last mile. She pointed her entire life and was a homebred, born in the Welsh Borders. There were lots more local point-to-points then, and she felt like everyone’s horse.”
Grace A Vous Enki had a very different background, as Nickie confirms. “He started off in France as a young horse, then went to Paul Nicholls, where he showed signs of not liking being in such a big yard. Paul suggested a change of scenery, as we’re near where owner Clive Hitchings lives, and he was a real challenge when he arrived. We didn’t know if what we did with him had worked until we got to the racecourse, but he still wanted to do it. I think he liked Larkhill so much because it’s a wide track, so he can jump left, and he loves his space and being in front – he thinks he’s in charge – and dislikes being in a string.”
I enquire how champion jockey James King, who’d never ridden for Nickie before last season, got the mount. “He had to have a top jockey on him,” replies Nickie. “When he wants to go left, he’ll go left, and we needed a jockey who’d trust the horse. James rang me up before his first run, as he didn’t have a ride in the race, I gave him a number for Clive Hitchings, the owner, and he said yes. Being leading horse wasn’t an objective until Clive pointed it out,” admits Nickie. “The horse’s welfare came first, and we only went to Mollington (where he won his title-clinching race) because of the championship. He won, but didn’t have the same buzz afterwards.”
Grace A Vous Enki clinches the leading horse title at Mollington (Neale Blackburn)
Recent and historic past covered, we turn to the future as Nickie talks me through plans for the leading lights in her yard. “We’ll try to win at all seven Larkhill fixtures with Eric! (They won at the first meeting last weekend and are entered there again on Sunday). But when you’re at the top, you’re there to be shot at and there’s always a young pretender, another Eric, coming out of training. We’ll keep him to right-handed tracks, although going the other way wasn’t the reason he was beaten in the Lady Dudley Cup – he had pus in his foot, so underperformed.”
“Ihandaya’s possibly the nicest horse we’ve had here,” Nickie continues, as Matt butts in, “Except for Patricks Park!” (who won at Ffos Las for the Sheppards before taking two big handicap chases for Willie Mullins). “He may start at Chaddesley Corbett (also entered at Larkhill), will be aimed at the Cheltenham Foxhunters and may go for the Lady Dudley Cup after that, as it’s a race that Clive, who also owns him, has always wanted to win.”
Ihandaya and Natalie Parker (right) round off a fine season at Chaddesley Corbett (Marilyn Sweet)
“(Dual 2024 Hunter Chase winner) Yippie Ki Yay (another entered at Larkhill) is owned by the Herberts, who’ve been fantastic supporters,” says Nickie. We once sold them a racing pony and it all started from there. They’re lovely people and have been very loyal. Their elder son Milo has retired after going out on a winner and his younger brother Ivor now has a licence to ride under rules so, if they click, we’ll target Hunter Chases again.”
Yippee Ki Yay and Milo Herbert leap to victory at Chipley Park (Tim Holt)
As for A Jet Of Our Own, third on his seasonal debut at Knightwick and also a fourth Sheppard entry at Larkhill on Sunday, “I’m not sure he’s a three-mile horse,” admits Nickie, “Having won over two at Cheltenham and two-and-a-half at Chaddesley Corbett. We’re aiming him at the Aintree Foxhunters – he’s still got to qualify, but the early season Hunter Chases will suit him.”
A muddy Fred Philipson-Stow celebrates Cheltenham success (Neale Blackburn)
Nickie is a keen supporter of hunting and appreciates the role it plays in pointing. “The sport is a network of hunting connections – the sort of people who’ll stand in a field watching their horses,” she confirms, before confessing, “I still go out with the Ledbury, but we don’t hunt our pointers. It’s mainly a time issue, but also, pointers cost more so you want to just train them, school them, take them to the races and eliminate the risk of them getting hurt. Although we might take an older horse out for an hour if we meet in the village.”
She has strong views on the future of the sport if further restrictions are placed on hunting under the new government. “If it stopped tomorrow, we’d be totally dependent on the landowners to support pointing,” is Nickie’s view. “Some landowners give their course rent-free as their way of raising money for their hunt – margins are tight in farming, and you give up your land for a point-to-point – so they might start charging. If you have a good committee and sponsors, you’ll survive, but I think we’ll see fewer courses with more fixtures, and you’ll need to be able to move the bends and fences between meetings.”
“I’ve asked all the West Mercian courses whether they’d continue without hunting,” adds Nickie, “And have had more yeses than noes. So, the passion’s there, but a lot more is needed. Volunteers are a dying breed, so you need sponsors to fund a point-to-point, and insurance is a high cost. Hunt meetings use their own insurance, but you can’t do that for a Club fixture.”
“You have to be optimistic,” interjects Matt. “Having seen the schooling at Maisemore Park recently, there’s a real passion from the jockeys, and pointing is a route from pony racing to going conditional.” Nickie agrees with her husband. “Our son Stan (now a leading jumps jockey) came through pony racing and knew so much more than we did because it gave him a brilliant education.” However, as a director of the Pony Racing Authority, Nickie has concerns about that discipline, as she explains. “At a rules meeting, you walk the course with a jockey coach before the pony race and watch the race back and analyse it afterwards. But you don’t have that facility at a point-to-point. And there’s a gap between ponies and pointing because most parents don’t know about racing – the horses are twice the size, you can’t keep them at home so you need to find a trainer, and you can’t necessarily afford the right horse. We need to give them more help.”
And Nickie’s solution? “We need to get jockey coaches more involved in pointing.” Matt chips in again. “And parent coaches!” Nickie sighs at the interruption and goes on. “They should be walking the course before all novice riders’ races, which is a condition (for amateur races) under rules, and you should be able to ring up the coaches, ask them questions, get their help… It needs financing, but we should take the caravan they have under rules to point-to-points, which has equicizers and screens – there’s nothing that shows you more than watching yourself ride, so you know where you are in the context of the race.”
Another subject close to Nickie’s heart is female jockeys. “There are lots of female novices,” she tells me, “Who just need a break, a bit of luck and the right connections – it’s hard for them to get results on moderate horses. We need to have more Ladies Opens – they might be up against Gina (Andrews) and Izzie (Hill) but, in a Mixed Open, there would be several of the top men and women. You can give them an allowance but it wouldn’t make any difference.”
Before I leave, I ask Nickie what’s kept her and Matt going through a lifetime in the sport. “It’s been a way of life… all my life. Dad (father – and rider of the prolific Touch Of Tammy – Roger Guilding) got a lot out of it, I’ve done it, Stan started out pointing. It’s hard work, seven days a week, but it’s my career, my livelihood, my way of life. We do less partying now – it’s just lunches! My ambition,” she adds as I ask about her plans, “Is to keep pointing, which I’ve seen change massively, going. It’s in the blood.”
Footnote: when I spoke to Matt a couple of years ago, he was writing a book but told me, “I can’t release it until a couple of people die, as I use real names!” Confessions of a Slow Two Miler, so named because about a quarter of his 220+ winners under rules have been in two-mile chases was published last month and, serendipitously, he won the race he sponsored (a two-mile chase, of course!) to mark the occasion.