Lady Buttons jockey Adam Nicol on his new life as a trainer

Adam Nicol, the jockey of Lady Buttons, has now set up as a trainer. Photo: James Hardisty.

Yet even this could not prepare him for the responsibility of training racehorses, and watching them in action, after saddling his first runners.

“It’s much more nerve-wracking; much more,” he told The Yorkshire Post. “I did wonder what the feeling was going to be like.

“Saddling the horses, legging a jockey up and watching them go to the start, I was a lot more confident and calmer as a rider. Now the moment you let them go, it’s out of your control.”

Adam Nicol spent around a decade riding for North Yorkshire trainer Phil Kirby.

Though Nicol’s first runner, Velkera, was pulled up at Hexham, the unfancied Wise Eagle outran his 66-1 odds to finish second at Catterick last week under former weighing room colleague Craig Nichol. “He ran an absolute blinder. I knew we had him fit – and we would have been delighted with him finishing in the first eight,” reported Nicol.

“Coming up the home straight still with a chance, I was quite excited – it’s certainly different training horses to riding them.”

That Wise Eagle ran in the red and yellow colours of the Seahouses Syndicate was significant for Nicol who enjoyed a decade-long association with North Yorkshire trainer Phil Kirby before a cruel run of injuries took their toll. This is the Northumberland town where he’s chosen to set up Springwood Racing – named after his mother Marian’s former showjumpers Spring and Woody.

Nicol, 31, has four stables at the family’s Slate Hall Riding Centre, with room to double that number, when he attracts new owners. It is very much a family business – his father Ian is helping with the books, his sister Sally-Anne helps ride out and his partner Jennie Durrans, who is expecting the couple’s first child, looked after the aforementioned Lady Buttons for so many years.

This was Lady Buttons and Adam nicol winning the 2019 Listed Mares' Hurdle at Wetherby on Charlie Hall Chase day - the jockey had just recovered from a badly broken leg.

Blessed by having such facilities, and a deep desire to be so personally involved with each horse, he’s grateful for other trainers, like Rose and Tony Dobbin, allowing him to use their gallops. And then there’s Northumberland’s sweeping sand beaches, and salt water from the North Sea, which have already helped to reinvigorate Wise Eagle after suffering a slight knock in the recent Catterick race.

If it’s good enough for Red Rum who was trained to win three Grand Nationals on Southport’s dunes, says Nicol, it will certainly assist him and spare the cost of buying an equine spa walker.

This also explains why he felt now was the right time to take out a training licence in spite of the economic uncertainty. He had a base. He had the knowledge learned from working for Kirby – just transporting horses on a box most days for a short time and giving them variety – means they’re far more relaxed at the races.

And, crucially, he was doubting himself. He suffered a badly broken hand at Ayr in April 2018; broke his leg at Musselburgh on New Year’s Day in 2019 and then fractured vertebrae in a horror fall at Sedgefield last Boxing Day.

Adam nicol after winning on Lady Buttons at Wetherby in November 2019.

In between, he enjoyed several career-defining wins on Lady Buttons for owners Keith and Jayne Sivills, notably recovering from his hideous leg injury to win on her so memorably at Wetherby in November 2019.

But with the horse of their dreams now retired to begin a carer as a broodmare, the decision was effectively made for him – and he had the sense to accept it. “I had had that much time off with injury, and then Covid, that I started thinking about the future for the first time,” added Nicol who has been shortlisted for a special recognition award at this week’s Lesters.

“When you start doing that as a jockey, who you have to be so focused and so obsessed, you’ve got to be 100 per cent dedicated and do it properly or it will come back and bite you. A lot of people would never have heard of Adam Nicol if it wasn’t for Lady Buttons. Now I feel I have achieved something. And I never wanted to be a journeyman.”

As a jockey – or now as a trainer.

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