Legends of the sport
Olympic gold medal-winning showjumper Nick Skelton and his exceptional career
“Nick became the best team player"
HARVEY SMITH
“WHEN you saw the hunched shoulders and attacking position of Skelly about to do the business, you knew the class wasn’t over,” says Graham Fletcher of double Olympic gold medallist Nick Skelton CBE.
For 40 years, that familiar silhouette set the benchmark in arenas all over the world. With his natural talent, attention to detail and fierce competitiveness, Nick could out-jump, out-gallop and out-turn anybody. He was a born winner, amassing an unparalleled trove of silverware, medals and grand prix titles.
But in the twilight of his exceptional career – and long after most sportsmen have called time – one prize still eluded him. Then on an historic afternoon in 2016, 58-year-old Nick and the legendary stallion Big Star claimed the greatest accolade of all.
“Just before I set off in the jump-off in Rio, I thought: ‘This is my last chance – there ain’t going to be another one’,” says Nick. “But winning Olympic gold was the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to me.”
NICK’S story is an epic page-turner of devastating setbacks, hard graft and heroic success, beginning 62 years ago in Warwickshire.
Nick was pony-mad, with a talent for getting into scrapes. He learnt to ride on 11.2hh Oxo, who joined the Skelton family at the age of two – when Nick was 18 months old – for £40. This equine saint lived to the age of 39 and taught both Nick’s sons to ride.
“I used to go to all the gymkhanas and even then I liked winning,” remembers Nick.
His team-mate turned commentator Steve Hadley says of the future champion: “Nick was always a great competitor, even as a kid in the bending race. I’ve never seen anyone have so much belief in their own judgement to be able to make a horse jump at its absolute best.”
Nick inherited his love for horses from his parents, as well as his father David’s passion for racing, and an early ambition to become a jump jockey was sparked on annual visits to watch the Cheltenham Gold Cup. That his sons Dan and Harry have forged paths as leading National Hunt trainer and jockey induces immense pride in their father.
“It’s not easy following in the footsteps of a parent who has been successful in something, particularly in sport,” says Nick. “But I’m very proud of how successful they’ve been.”
It was on a similar pilgrimage to Horse of the Year Show that the seeds were sown for Nick’s career.
“I used to sit at the warm-up and watch David Broome, Harvey Smith and the Schockemöhles,” he recalls. “David rode in a rhythm that looked so effortless and I thought: ‘If I’m going to do this one day, I want to do it like him’.”
After several successful years jumping on ponies, it would be David’s sister Liz and her husband Ted Edgar who recognised Nick’s talent and helped pave the path for this ambitious 15-year-old straight out of school.
He earned £7 for working seven days a week, but he stayed with the famous Everest team for more than 12 years – grabbing every opportunity and making a massive impact on the sport.
One of his abiding memories is winning the 1980 leading showjumper at Wembley riding Maybe.
“I was up against Harvey
Smith on Olympic Star in the jump-off,” he says. “I was 22 and beat him. That felt good.”
But typical of Nick – to him, nothing seems impossible. It’s a trait he would display time and again, not least when at Olympia in 1978 he and Lastic broke the British high jump record at 2.32m – just over 7ft 7in.
As Nick Brooks-Ward remembers: “His sheer bravery that night and his trust in Lastic was something that became a benchmark for his career.”
The pair featured on the front pages of all the newspapers the following day.
“Although not actually clearing it – smashing it to pieces the time before!” says Nick.
Soon after, he and Lastic won the grand prix in Geneva and then came his first Nations Cup call-up. Even in his rookie days, Nick played the pathfinder role – setting the gauntlet and instilling confidence in his team-mates for
“Nick’s sheer bravery became a benchmark for his career”
NICK BROOKS-WARD
the next 37 years.
“I’m impatient and I like to get it over and done with,” says Nick, who represented his country an astonishing 180 times. “I will always feel very honoured to have done that – to hear your national anthem is a great thing.”
His first taste of an Olympics came with Maybe in the 1980 alternative Games in Rotterdam.
“It may not be counted in the history books, but I still have the medal. It was a massive step forward for me,” says Nick, who came away with team silver – he, Graham Fletcher, Tim Grubb and John Whitaker were beaten by just a time-fault by Canada.
It speaks volumes that Nick
was selected for a further seven Olympics, but the gold medals for which he is now so famous didn’t come easily. The silverware, however, readily filled his shelves and his name is etched on nearly every major trophy.
The hallowed turf of Spruce Meadows and Aachen have been the scene of some of Nick’s greatest triumphs. He won the Nations Cup on his first visit to Aachen in 1981 and only had to wait 12 months before joining the illustrious grand prix roll of honour, which he went on to win a further three times.
“It was my first big title at the age of 25 – Aachen is the Wimbledon of showjumping and it’s the best feeling,” says Nick, who had to jump four rounds in heavy rain to win that first grand prix with If Ever.
THE 1980s and ’90s marked an incredible era of Rule Britannia in the sport; it was the time of “the three amigos” – Nick, John and Michael Whitaker – who dominated teams, hauled in the medals and took the sport to a new level.
“Nick was always a good man to have on your team,” acknowledges John. “He’s been a massive influence on a lot of people, myself included.”
While John had his legendary partner Milton, Nick had the white-faced Apollo, who gave 28-year-old Nick his first individual medal – bronze at the 1986 World Championships, decided in those days by the top four riders all swapping horses.
“I’m pretty satisfied with all I achieved, but I would have liked to have won a World Championship,” reflects Nick.
Apollo loved the big occasion, and as well as championship gold medals, he proved his versatility with puissance wins, two Aachen grands prix and the second and third of Nick’s consecutive Hickstead Derby victories.
“I’ve been watching showjumping since I was a small boy but that is the finest competition and jump-off I have ever seen,” said Hickstead’s owner Douglas Bunn after Nick beat Joe Turi (Kruger) and Philip Heffer (Viewpoint) in a three-way tiebreaker in 1989.
Apollo went on to make a tremendous hunter for Nick’s stepmother in retirement, living to the venerable age of 31.
By this time, young groom Mark Beever had joined the team, an association that has continued for over 30 years. The astute horseman has devoted meticulous care to each of Nick’s horses and