Nicola getting a huge Buzz ahead of leading way for Olympics challenge

That is going to be the big test for British riders before the final selection is made at the end of May, when our eventing team for the London Olympics will be announced.

With their track record, Nicola and Opposition Buzz should be sure of a place in the team but, understandably, she does not want to tempt fate.

She is trying to concentrate on what she can control, like her training and not worry about those things she can not control.

“We are going into Olympic year with Opposition Buzz feeling and looking good,” says Nicola. “I have to keep my head down and put the work in and hope we get a good result.”

This horse has made so many of her dreams come true and they have formed a great partnership.

They have taken on the role of pathfinder for the cross-country stages at the past two European Championships and at the 2010 World Equestrian Games, where the team won gold.

On her debut with the senior team, at the 2009 European Championships, the team won gold.

“I have always been mad keen on riding and it was a childhood dream to go to the Olympics. To be a member of the British team was an aim from a very young age,” said Nicola, 35.

She was given her first pony on loan at the age of three-and-a-half and has been riding ever since.

When she was 13, she got her first horse, a four-year-old called Mr Bumble.

They taught each other a lot and when she was 21 they competed at Burghley Horse Trials, finishing 10th.

“When we walked the course I thought ‘this is ridiculous, I have bitten off too much’ and I decided to withdraw before the cross-country. But the more times I walked the course, the more I thought I could do it. We finished 10th in our first ever four-star. It was such a thrill and that’s when I knew this is where I wanted my career to lie,” said Nicola.

She did a degree in sports studies and business management at Manchester University as she knew she would need something to fall back on if a career with horses did not work out.

“I made some valuable friends and I learned a lot,” says Nicola. When she came home, she advertised in the local tack shop for horses that needed schooling and set out on her quest to make a name for herself in eventing.

It helps that she comes from a horsey family. Her mother, Mary Tweddle, is a former joint-master of the Bedale hunt and encouraged Nicola and her younger sister and brother to ride from an early age.

The family and Nicola’s husband, Alastair, all go hunting together at the weekends.

Nicola’s yard is at her parents’ farm near Northallerton and she and Alastair live a short drive away.

The arrival of Opposition Buzz at the yard proved to be the big break she had been waiting for.

Bred by Rosemary Search, from Wetherby, Dodi as he is known at home, came to Nicola as a seven-year-old.

“He had such a big heart. He didn’t find anything easy but he’s very determined,” said Nicola.

She had to get to grips with his unusual jumping style – huge leaps taken at great speed.

“He needed to train me rather than me him and I had to learn how to make the most of his enthusiasm. It really is a partnership between horse and rider and that’s what is so special.”

Being chosen as the pathfinders for the British team has been an honour, says Nicola, and to go first out onto the course at the Olympic Games really would be a dream come true.

There is plenty of work to do meanwhile back at home where Nicola and her team – her mum, head groom Lynn Swift and Carrie Myatt – have 12 horses to prepare for competing this year.

They include Rosemary Search’s Bee Diplomatic, half-brother to Opposition Buzz; Inde, owned by Lady Milnes Coates, a long-standing supporter of Nicola’s, and Penny Marriner and Annie Clover, who belongs to Nicola’s mother.

Training at home is done in an outdoor arena and across the fields to the river bank where she uses the artificial grass banking which is part of flood defences, to walk the horses up and down to get them fit.

Closer to a three-day event, they will head off to the gallops at a neighbouring racing yard.

Opposition Buzz has been happily strutting his stuff for our photographer and is looking good.

Nicola gives him a pat and says: “It’s tempting to wrap them up in cotton wool but you have to stick to a routine and work as you have in previous years. I just hope that luck is with us.”