Olympic individual show jumping gold medallist, Nick Skelton made a guest appearance at the Burghley Horse Trials to speak about his unique partnership with Big Star, and just how much the Rio win meant to him.
The Burghley spectators were delighted to see Nick and his medal. He posed for photos (sometimes known as “Skelfies”) with fans of all ages.
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— Gabby Logan (@GabbyLogan) September 4, 2016
“It’s been amazing, everything that has happened in the last fortnight has been overwhelming, really. To get all that at my age is pretty good. It’s the one thing that I’ve missed doing, the whole of my career. I’ve won most Grands Prix, Europeans and World medals, but to win the Olympic medal… it is one thing I’ve wanted all my life. I thought I was getting towards the end and was never going to do it, but to actually get it, it was relief more than excitement and enjoyment; it was just relief.”
Of course Nick didn’t do it all on his own, and he has always said that Big Star is the best horse he has sat on. Even after the opening round at the Olympics, where they had the last fence down, he maintained that his horse would cope with whatever the course builders put in front of him. Big Star, a Dutch warmblood stallion, has had his own share of injuries and has been carefully nursed back to health and fitness by the Skelton team.
“Big Star has been amazing because the last serious competition that he won was in Aachen in 2013 when he won the Grand Prix, and he hasn’t really competed since that. In Rio, that was the 14th round he has jumped this year, which is nothing. He hadn’t really competed at top level, he had just been doing the three-star shows trying to get him fit. He’s been a great patient and thanks go out to all the people who have helped and got him there.”
Nick’s medal is Britain’s first-ever individual Olympic show jumping gold. “It should lift our sport, and the people who run the sport have got to take advantage of it and do whatever they can to make sure that it works,” he says. It has already brought him some rather unexpected advantages: “I went to Waitrose [supermarket] the other day and a lot of people were letting me go down the line first, which was nice.”
Nick, who is now 58, is Britain’s oldest Olympic gold medallist since 1908. There is a campaign afoot to see him nominated for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year and talk that he should be up for a knighthood. Sir Nick Skelton sounds quite good, don’t you think?
