Campaign Summary

A Tough Winter and a Roadside Surprise

The 1985/86 winter was extremely harsh. When David Nicholson’s gallops at Cotswold House were frozen solid, we took the horses down to Burnham-on-Sea to work on the beach. I rode Charter Party several times there—it was two miles one way, two miles back, cantering directly on the sand. It was hard work but a brilliant education for a young lad, and it was also good fun. There would be 12 or 15 of us cantering one behind the other. I remember one day Paul Carvill was out in front on the hard-pulling Burnt Oak (who went on to win two Grand Military Gold Cups) who was probably quite excited about having a day out at the seaside. He got the better of Paul and they ran off out of sight. As I remember, Bernie and “Pope” (Carvill’s nickname) were eventually found some way off in a local car park in Burnham.

At times, Princess Anne would regularly ride out at Cotswold House for David Nicholson, and on occasion, The Princess also came to the beach rides. It all felt very normal at the time, just part of the daily job. One morning in February 1986, going down to Burnham-on-Sea with Charter Party and other horses, the horsebox we were travelling in suffered a puncture on the motorway and the driver pulled onto the hard shoulder. While we were waiting for it to be fixed, a Range Rover pulled up behind us. Out stepped Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips. They stayed right there on the roadside with us until the tyre was completely changed. Moments like that don’t feel extraordinary when you are in them; you just get on with the job.

During this cold winter, I also rode Charter Party on Henry Hutsby’s old railway gallop at his place in Warwickshire and in a strong piece of work behind Very Promising and Voice of Progress on the Lambourn gallops, not long before the Cheltenham Festival, which was very exciting. It was a proper grounding in National Hunt education: hard work, repetition, and learning from some of the best horses around. I will never forget the mornings we travelled to Burnham and Lambourn. I would sit in the back of the horsebox and it was always freezing cold, so I would wrap myself up completely in Charter Party’s stable rugs to keep warm. They were very hairy, very horsey, and incredibly warm.

Horses I Led Up – NH 1985/86

Reflections on a Foundation Campaign

Looking back more than four decades later, I still recognise this era as the definitive bedrock of my daily horsemanship. Handling a classic, high-performance chaser like Charter Party during his foundational year established the strict baseline of discipline, safety, and routine required at the peak of National Hunt racing.