Boxing CLEVER
He turned his back on politics and had to endure a family tragedy... now Nico De Boinville might be a King at Kempton
ASK Nico De Boinville what path his life might have taken had he stuck with his politics course at Newcastle University and not jacked it in after six weeks to pursue his racing dream and you get a self-deprecating answer.
‘I would probably be more boring than I am now! I am just not a very interesting character,’ says the 28year- old jockey who will ride favourite Might Bite in the 32Red King George VI Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day.
There is no edge to the words and De Boinville is not a difficult interviewee. He simply seems to find it hard to believe anybody would be interested in him and his life. But that is not how it seems from the outside.
The fact that he even considered going to university already puts Bradfield College- educated De Boinville in the minority among his weighing room peers.
When he became engaged, the announcement was recorded in Peerage News using his full name — Nicolai Chastel de Boinville.
But the most admirable and interesting thing about De Boinville is not noble French ancestors but the way he conducted himself, particularly during a difficult time, and wholeheartedly grabbed the opportunity he had to wait to be offered.
This time last year, De Boinville had just returned from a holiday in Dubai as he recuperated from a broken arm and ‘sorted my head out as much as anything’.
He was a TV spectactor when Might Bite fell at the last fence with the Grade One Kauto Star Novices’ Chase, one of the chief supporting races on Kempton’s Boxing Day card, at his mercy. De Boinville said: ‘It is the wrong time of year to get injured. You see racing going on and you can’t get involved. It’s hard but you learn to sit back, relax and let it happen.’
The philosophical answer, in part, is possibly due to the fact that De Boinville can put his life experiences into perspective. When the rider landed the 2016 Queen Mother Champion Chase on the great Sprinter Sacre, it was a hugely emotional win on a popular horse delivered in the pressurised cauldron of the Cheltenham Festival.
But De Boinville won most admiration from both inside and outside the sport when it emerged that he had kept his focus while his mother Shaunagh lost her battle against cancer in the weeks building up to jump racing’s biggest meeting.
Few people, even those who mixed regularly with De Boinville, knew the turmoil he must have been suffering. He said: ‘It was a very difficult time for not just me but also my whole family and my extended family.
‘With someone battling cancer, it is horrible for everyone involved. I guess the race-riding was just my way of thinking about something else. It was my escape. My mum was very supportive of me and everything I did. You know she’d want you to carry on and enjoy it as much as you can. That’s what you try to do.
‘She took us down the riding route. She was a Montessori teacher. She believed if we had an interest in something else, that would help our development.’
In the early years of De Boinvil l e’s career with Lambourn trainer Nicky Henderson, he was the test pilot, the man who did the work with the horses on the gallops before handing them over for Barry Geraghty or Sir Anthony McCoy to take over on the track.
De Boinville admits there were times he was frustrated at his lack of progress but the wait has proved not only a solid grounding but also well worth it.
His 10 grade one wins have come on horses considered Rolls-Royce class in jump racing terms — 2015 Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Coneygree, the spectacular Sprinter Sacre and the elegant Arkle Novice Chase winner Altior.
Is Might Bite in the same league? De Boinville has described his mount as ‘so talented it’s scary’. Two Grade One wins in his novice chase career suggest he might be.
They included a dramatic and heart- stopping win in the RSA Chase at the Cheltenham Festival in March, when the eight-year-old gelding almost threw away victory by veering sharply left before rallying to hold off his useful stablemate and Boxing Day rival Whisper.
The manoeuvre earned the son of Scorpion a quirky tag, which De Boinville feels is unwarranted. ‘He has such a high cruising speed and he seems to be able to maintain it for a long time,’ he said. ‘He jumps well and what he did at Cheltenham showed how talented he is. He saved both our skins!
‘ He was doing everything so easily. If he was tired he would not have been able to stop and then get up to full pelt in a matter of strides. I am sure he has progressed from and like most good horses, I think he is incredibly versatile.’
If De Boinville can win the King George on his first ride in the race, he will probably defer the credit to Henderson and Might Bite.
Reflecting on his approach to life, the jockey, who will marry his fiancee Serena next year, said: ‘You have to try to balance your life and realise it is not all about you. It is very easy to become very self-centred in this game. Sometimes you have to think twice.’
De Boinville is balanced but not boring, despite what he says.