Nick Skelton’s Olympic superstar to make a comeback
Olympic gold medal winner Big Star will be making his return to the show ring next week.
Nick Skelton’s London 2012 partner has not been seen at a competition since the Global Champions Tour grand prix in Estoril in 2014.
The pair will be competing in Vilamoura, Portugal, at the Atlantic Tour, which started on Thursday (24 September) and runs until 18 October.
“Big Star is making a comeback,” Nick told H&H.
“He looks good and has been jumping at home for about 12 weeks. I will start him off in the small classes and see how we go, as he hasn’t been in the ring for 16 months.”
The 12-year-old stallion has been off following the recurrence of a leg injury.
Following the GCT in 2014 he was found to have torn his lower suspensory.
Never miss out on the latest happenings in the equestrian world
Nick told H&H at the time that it meant “a good amount of time off”.
The son of Quick Star, owned by Beverley Widdowson, was sidelined for nine months from September 2013 with a similar injury and was brought back extremely carefully by Nick and his team.
The injury has meant Nick has been missing from championship teams the past two summers, missing the 2014 World Equestrian Games and the Europeans this summer
Nick has been competing Untouched, Cliff 67 and Curious George this season. He last competed at the CSI2* in Brussels in early September.
Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now
A graduate of Exeter University, Amy joined our news team from Redpin Publishing in 2008 as news writer. She was promoted to deputy news editor in May 2013 and became news editor in April 2015. She left Horse & Hound in March 2016 to take up an editorial position in Dubai.