Pau 2011 Friday | Andrew Nicholson Well Positioned For XC

Andrew Nicholson & Armada

Andrew Nicholson has come to Pau with a full arsenal of 3 horses (Henry Tankerville, Armada, Mr. Cruise Control) for the CCI****, plus one in the 2 star. I caught up with him after his dressage test on Armada, which is a horse I've always admired as he's a 'little' exciting to watch on the cross country. This video interview turned out a little shorter than I expected due to a battery failure, but continues below. The thing I like about Andrew is he speaks his mind, and enjoys pulling your leg or trying to trip you up!






What I still find utterly amazing about Andrew is the sheer depth of his string's talent pool. When I asked him how many horses he had that were qualified for the Olympics he struggled to name them all. We got to 8 before him saying, "...and there are probably one or two others but they wouldn't be up to the task"!

For WEG2010, Andrew had 4 horses, shortlisted, I don't remember anyone else having that many on a shortlist, not even William Fox-Pitt, who is probably the only other rider who can match Andrew in terms of numbers for decent 4 star horses.

In case you missed it, I'm a big fan of his grey horse Mr. Cruise Control, so tomorrow's cross country is going have me wired! If anyone can make the time here at Pau Andrew can.

So just because, here's another photo of Mr. C C:

Andrew Nicholson & Mr. Cruise Control

ps. if Henry Tankerville wins, we'll both have egg on our face........