“He’s a good egg – if he were a person he’d give me vibes of Hugh Grant in Notting Hill,” says Nellie Smith, groom of Caroline Harris’ ride D.Day, who is contesting the Agria Blenheim European Championships this week. “He’s quite quiet and introverted, but once you get to know him he’s charming and funny!
“He’s insular, but he knows his people – his four owners [Fiona Olivier, Heather Royle, Lucy Matthews and Marie Anne Richardson], Caroline and me – and he turns into a complete brat! He’s never rude, but he demands treats and shouts for his dinner. Whenever he sees his ladies he’s all chatty! But he’s a pleasure, so easy to look after and he eats anything that goes, but especially a Polo.”
Although D. Day doesn’t have any peculiar quirks, he “won’t go within a mile of a tractor”. But the biggest surprise is his diminutive stature.
“He’s listed as 16hh but he’s diddy,” Nellie says. “He has the massive corner stable and his little head pokes out. Everyone is surprised he’s the tiny little one.”
Nellie, 22, stepped up into the role as Caroline’s travelling groom only this season, and describes her experience at the Europeans as “surreal”. She started working for Caroline two years ago, having responded to an ad on Facebook, and “loved it from the day dot”.
But she’s had to learn to rein in her emotions.
“I’m working on the nerves – when I first started even Caroline had to tell me to stop being so nervous,” she says. “I cry all the time watching D. Day! I have so much respect for him; he wasn’t bred for this and he just throws his heart over and the rest follows.
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“I’m learning to be more of a shell until they’ve set off, but once the jumping phases start, I start crying. Seeing them come into the main arena at Aachen I welled up so much, and Bramham coming up the hill. He just loves his job, I’ve never known a horse who wants to go so much.”
Nellie Smith’s path to being groom to Caroline Harris at the Blenheim European Championships
Nellie grew up in a horsey family.
“My mum did Badminton and Burghley on her old hunting horse, my aunt used to groom for Jenny Pitman, my uncle’s a farrier, my other aunt groomed at Badminton,” she lists. “My godmother’s an eventing journalist in Australia. So I’m fortunate that I was plonked on a horse at about three months old.”
Nellie herself did ponies and started out in horses, but after some “bad luck” tried out an office job for a short while.
“I hated it!” she said. “The people were nice but even when it was raining I just wanted to be outside playing ponies.”
Grooming at elite level is second nature to Nellie.
“I grew up in a professional horsey environment, so everything was done top notch,” she says. I never learned to do anything half-hearted so that’s stood me in good stead although of course I have learned a lot.
“Caroline is a big inspiration, and I’m really happy where I am – the places that D.Day and Caroline’s other horses have taken me this year. I had to pinch myself at Aachen and say, ‘I am here for my job, I am working!’ It’s unbelievably exciting to be at Blenheim, too.”
Competing at the Blenheim European Championships, Caroline Harris is an individual rider in the British squad, which runs in partnership with Agria. She is due out on cross-country on D. Day at 11.55am today (Saturday, 20 September).
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Martha is an experienced journalist who is mad-keen on horses and dogs. Her reporting CV includes the Paris Olympics, European championships, Aachen World Equestrian Festival and World Cup finals. After growing up with assorted liver and white springer spaniels, she enjoyed 14 years with two rescue dogs. Now, her constant companion is Fidget, an extremely energetic and habitually muddy black and white springer. Martha has written on topics as diverse as a top horse’s clone to the best GPS trackers for dogs, as well as equestrian and rural matters for Country Life, The Field, The Times, The Spectator and The Telegraph alongside Horse & Hound.
