Nini French is tackling her first five-star at Pau Horse Trials this week since her last and only attempt at this level at Burghley in 2004.
“Burghley seems like such a long time ago now,” says Nini, 45. “I was riding a horse called Beat The Retreat back then, but I fell off across country and had to sprint down Winners’ Avenue to catch the mare, as it was back in the days when you could get back on. But we managed to complete the course.”
Nini is riding Time For Harry, a 14-year-old gelding, at Pau this week, but she is more used to being on the other side of the fence grooming for riders. Her sister Piggy March has also swapped roles this week, as she is at the event helping Nini, rather than riding.
“It’s a bit weird being the one riding and Piggy being the one helping me on the ground,” laughs Nini, who keeps ‘Harold’ at Piggy’s Northamptonshire yard. “We don’t see much of each other at home because I ride very early in the morning and go off to work for other riders – such as Susie Berry – and Piggy is always looking after her son Max in the morning.
“It works really well because if I need some help from her, I can squeal, and we both sort of fill in the gaps in each other’s lives.”
Nini also has a part-time job working in a worm count laboratory.
“I got the job after I injured my shoulder last year and so it was a job I could keep doing while I couldn’t do much manual labour,” she explains.
Harold is Nini’s only horse, and she bought him as an unbroken three-year-old.
“I evented Harold’s mother to novice level and he was bred by my next door neighbour at the time, when I lived in Norfolk,” she explains. “My neighbour sent me four of his home-breds, including Harold, to back. I decided to buy him as he was a little 15.2hh rabbity-type of a thing and I thought he’d be a really cute little horse for me to produce and then sell as a kid’s horse. And then he just kept growing and I realised wouldn’t really be suitable for a kid, as although he’s really sweet, he’s not very brave and has a terrible jumping technique – he stops at cross poles and poles on the floor!”
Nini says that she just continued to “trundle along” with Harold and it is their one-to-one partnership that has got them to this level.
“We know each other so well and he’s definitely a one person horse. He really tries and he’d never do anything wrong to be bad. It’s just sometimes if you make a mistake, he worries about it, but he’s my pet.”
Nini confesses she didn’t think Harold would ever make it to five-star level, but they jumped clear across country in the CCI4*-L at Bramham this year and then followed that up by finishing third in the CCI4*-L at Blair Castle in August.
“I turned him out after Blair thinking that would be it for the year, but then I thought actually, we’re both in one piece, which is rare, because I just am never in one place,” she says with a laugh. “So I thought actually, sometimes you just have to take the opportunity, don’t you?
“So I rang [fellow eventer] Emilie Chandler to ask her if she thought I was being stupid to consider bringing him to Pau and she said ‘No, I really wanted to ring you and tell you to enter, but I didn’t want to put any pressure on you’. And then Piggy told me it would be a good idea too, so hopefully we’ll have a nice week.
“I’ve never really thought of him as a five-star horse because I know how far he’s come to get to this level of braveness.”
Nini and Harold got their Pau campaign off to a solid start, scoring 31.3 in the first phase, which has put them in 18th place going into today’s cross-country.
“He was really good in his test because he’s got a bit scared in the last few main arenas he’s been in. He tries so hard and is a little bit like ‘do you want shoulder-in, do you want half-pass, what do you want?’ and I just have to tell him to chill his beans.”
Nini and Harold will start their cross-country round at 3.24pm (2.24pm British time) today.
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