Talking about Nip Tuck with Carl Hester

Barney is not sure about the photographer

Let’s talk about Nip Tuck – There must have been dozens of horses that you have started that look more glamorous, that move more brilliantly, that never made Grand Prix. How important is what you can’t see, what’s inside?
“Good point, that horse proves it all doesn’t he? Over 25 years at championship level with different horses, and that one still taught me a great lesson. His owner Jane de la Mare is a really good friend of mine, she was a groom at Dr B’s (Dr Bechtolsheimer, father of Laura and owner of Carl’s Barcelona Olympic ride, Giorgione) when I was a rider there. So this is a good partnership between the three of us. We started at the bottom, Jane and I together. She’s from the Channel Islands too. When I got the horse, Nip Tuck was nothing on the way up, but I always said, ‘I know he will do a Grand Prix’, that’s all I could say…”

How did you know that?
“You know when you ride him. You can ride that horse in a pair of slippers, it just wants to go. You don’t have to ride with a whip or spurs, nothing. The sensitivity is there, and if you touched him with a whip, the horse was like, right, I’m going to piaffe. That was a natural thing for him to do.”

Competing at the Europeans in 2014

“I said, I think I can teach him everything. Last year, when he got to Grand Prix I said, he’s not going to be good enough. Jane said, oh please do a Grand Prix with him before we sell him. I said, we’ll go down the road where no one goes. We went to a back-of-beyond Grand Prix, and the blooming horse gets 77%. He was as green-as-a-leek.

Spooking at the scary scoreboard at the Europeans in 2015

When I came out, I said, I can’t believe it, he was pretty tense last year, he’s a very hot horse, and January / February is not a good time of the year for him because he’s not in the field as much as I’d like.

But still tried his hardest in the test…

I said that’s unbelievable – the horse is so tense, but he tries his absolute hardest not to make a mistake, he’s doing what I said.”

“I know physically it is demanding for him, he’s got a long back, his hind legs were naturally always out, he didn’t really have a walk because he was so tight, he didn’t really have a canter because he was so tense and always trying to run off – and his trot had to be developed. Everything that goes in a Grand Prix has helped make him a better horse. Once he learnt a canter pirouette, he started to take the weight back in canter, once he learnt to passage, the trot started to develop because before he had no lift, no nothing. It has just been a great lesson for me and I am delighted that I have been proved wrong, because it helps you in so many ways. It helps you as a trainer, because instead of saying to somebody, oh your horse is not good enough, now I say, well actually I tried this, I tried that, let’s see if we can develop something with your horse. Obviously on a personal level, every horse I get up to this level is a challenge for me, and that’s what I do it for. I love the opportunity to get a horse up to this level.”

After the 2016 Rio Games
“He can’t retire! If he can come seventh at the Olympics, I’m not stopping now. First of all, I would like that horse just to prove a point, come on – no hind legs, no paces, you can do it. We can do a bit better. I’ve ridden some great horses in my life, but I enjoy riding that horse the most, I really do. Sitting on Barney, I’m riding presence, going round today, you are sitting behind a neck like that, and he starts to go, and when he’s more relaxed and starts to use his body like he was today. In the Grand Prix he was so nervous, but today when his body moves, his hind legs don’t look so much not part of him. Honestly you sit there, and he is so lovely in my hands, when I have him really light and on his hind legs, it’s just the best feeling, the feeling of changing something…”

Isn’t that supposed to be what dressage is about…
“I know we say that Chris, but not every horse is capable of it. If we all trained with the rules and the blocks of the training scale… I haven’t been able to put those blocks in place with that horse. The contact came as he has got more on his hind legs, some things have been back-to-front a little bit with him. That’s alright.”
“That’s what makes me laugh when you get his critics saying, he should be more sitting, he should be this or that… Well, I started with no walk, no trot and no canter, that’s what I started with, Valegro started with all three paces.”
“That’s training, it does show that you can create something in every horse that has the willingness to work – it won’t be of the same quality, but it is something you can still make.”

“It’s interesting because Nip Tuck is one of my most favorite horses I’ve ever ridden in my life, and I really look forward to riding him all the time. I just love the generosity of the horse…”

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