H&H interview
The newly crowned leading showjumper of the year talks to Sarah Radford about being back in the spotlight, and why the Olympics is the ultimate goal
Leading showjumper of 2017 Nigel Coupe
THERE is a maxim that if you keep plugging away your luck will change, and no one exemplifies this better than Nigel Coupe.
But there is more than luck to the incredible vein of form that the Prestonbased 46-year-old has struck this year with the remarkable Golvers Hill (Ricky).
Starting with a win in the Hickstead Derby in June, he added the Cock o’ the North — equally prized among showjumpers — just two weeks later. Proving his versatility, the 14-yearold Irish gelding then turned the first major indoor run of the season into triumph when he also banked the Horse of the Year Show’s (HOYS) grand prix.
“Sometimes in life you have a run of the Midas touch,” Nigel says, who also won the leading showjumper of the year title at HOYS. “The gods have been shining on me these [past] few months and when they do you have to make it last as long as possible.”
Fate has primed the rider to soak up this moment. Before the arrival of Ricky — whom he describes as “a revelation in putting me back on the map” — he spent the best part of two decades out of the limelight.
A full 27 years elapsed from his first shot at the Derby and victory, while there was an 18-year hiatus between his last call-up for a Nations Cup and his squad place in Aachen in 2016.
“I’ve competed all my life, it’s what I do,” says Nigel, who had three further Nations
Cup duties this season. “I was always riding but at 1m to 1.20m rather than 1.40m and 1.50m. I didn’t have the horses and I didn’t have the owners. You have to work hard to get back up there and have a bit of belief that one day it will change.”
While possessing ample down-toearth northern pragmatism, Nigel also has purposeful energy and you can see that his ambition has survived intact. His talent is also evident — if any of the crowd at HOYS this year thought he had sprung out of nowhere, a glance at the big screen as it showed the rolls of honour would have indicated his substantial past credentials.
WHILE not exactly from a horsey background — Nigel’s mother Jenny is a farmer’s daughter while his father Ken’s parents owned a cast iron foundry — his family had a passing interest in the sport.
“My dad got into watching a bit of the jumping in the days of Harvey and Broomey,” says Nigel. “I think he did get a pony when he was 13 or 14 years old but I don’t think my granddad was too keen and he ended up going into the business.”
Horses soon entered the blood of Nigel and his older brother Jason, however.
“Jason got a pony, he grew out of it and I rode it — and he got another one. We did local shows, Pony Club, riding club and we were OK at it but it wasn’t until we got to 14.2hhs that we started being quite successful,” Nigel recalls.
In 1987 Nigel took his first big win in HOYS’ leading pony showjumper on Rogerio — then known as the “Christy Beaufort”, held at Wembley.
He added the Foxhunter title with Balou in 1990 and established a strong young-rider career, collecting team medals with horses Suntory and Invincible Lad, before stepping onto the international stage.
“We went on the circuit to America — that was amazing at 18 or 19 years of age,” he remembers. “We jumped in Washington, New York and Toronto — at that point you just thought that would be your life forever and you’d never have a bad spell. But they do come.”
‘The gods have been shining on me these [past] few months and when they do you
have to make it last as long as possible’
ABLIP came “around the time of the first foot and mouth outbreak” in 2000/2001 when Nigel found himself short on horse power.
“I was jumping abroad in Italy and one of the horses went lame. Then I sold one. I suppose it’s like a hamster wheel. Once you’re off it, it’s hard to get back on it,” he muses.
While out of top-level competition, Nigel fell back on the “bread and butter” of his two liveryyard businesses. His family’s 150-acre, 50-livery Holster farm in Samlesbury — where he is still based with his parents, son Harry, 12, and twins Olivia and Isabelle, nine [he is divorced from their mother] — and a smaller yard in Hoghton, which is further towards Preston.
“The difficulty with our job is that you have to balance it with earning a living. You have to have different strings to your bow — we have the yard, other people sell horses, some people have businesses and ride part-time, but it is all how it works for you,” he says.
In 2007, Nigel found himself going with his client Sue Simmons to view a “nice four- year-old” called Golvers Hill as a potential working hunter.
Sue bought him and showed him, while Nigel showjumped him at the lower levels. In 2011, when he was eight, he qualified for the newcomers, Foxhunter and working hunter at HOYS in the same year.
“He had a busy week but still performed admirably — but it was getting to the point where he could no longer do both,” Nigel says.
In August 2012 Ricky spent some time competing with Nigel and stepped up to grade A, ending his showing career. Thanks to another twist of fate, Nigel was able to take him up the ranks without him being sold on.
“He’s a bit quirky in the way he goes — he doesn’t change well behind,” he reveals. “The Americans want them perfect so it probably stopped people trying to buy him. Also, it helped that we didn’t need to sell him so we could eat the next week.”
Nigel — who now co-owns him — admits he had no idea the Ricardo Z x Clover Hill bay would be one to turn around his career.
“He’s not one of those horses you have to think too hard about,” Nigel says. “He’s not going to win the Olympics but rarely do you go home disappointed. You go in the ring confident and that’s invaluable.”
Despite his mounting success, the Preston North End Football Club fan remains true to his roots, citing the horse’s win in the Cock o’ the North as “just as proud a moment” as any this year.
He nevertheless acknowledges that “like most riders, the Olympics is always a goal,” and having always been “a lover of travel” he is keen for a shot at the five-star shows. Hoping to get into Olympia this year — he is currently sitting 11th in line for 10 available places — Nigel admits that now Ricky has opened the doors he could do with another two horses to boost his string.
He currently has nine-year-old Dragon and 13-year-old Jubilee III, a sensitive chestnut mare who can be “hard work” but has come good, winning the speed horse of the year at HOYS in 2015.
“If I had two more horses then I could pick and choose my shows more. It would be perfect but, you know, I’ll take one good horse. It’s being greedy asking for two!” he says.
“Ricky has achieved a lot of things on my list of ambitions this year, and you always have more, but I’m happy to carry on for a few more years earning a few quid and enjoying it.”