Paul Nicholls’ ex-wife Georgie back in business and hoping to make a big impact – with daughter Olive by her side

PAUL NICHOLLS might be the dominant force in British jumps racing, but another Nicholls is back and wants a slice of the action.

The 14-time champion trainer’s ex-wife Georgie renewed her trainer’s licence last summer and, if her enthusiasm is anything to go by, it won’t be long until she is shaking things up.

Olive and Georgie Nicholls are hoping to make a big impact in jumps racing – with horses like Thank You Ma’am

She trained in her own right for a few years — enjoying Grade 1 success with Phar Bleu at Chepstow in 2004 — before meeting Paul and moving to Ditcheat.

During her time there she was the regular rider of Master Minded, the brilliant Champion Chase winner, while she also threw her leg over legends Kauto Star and Denman from time to time.

Fair to say Georgie, 47, picked up a thing or two during her 13-year relationship with Nicholls, and she started training point-to-point horses after the pair split up in 2016.

With daughter Olive, 19, as her right-hand woman, they decided now was the right time to return to the fray from their Kingston Lisle yard in Oxfordshire.

She joked: “Ask anyone in and they’ll say now’s not the time to take a licence out!

“But we’ve had a lot of babies in here to pre-train and got a little tired of sending them off to yards and watching others have all the fun.

“It can be quite a wrench letting them go — and some of the owners encouraged me to start training again.

“I assumed getting my licence back would be easy. I’ve trained a Grade 1 winner and never left the sport, but I had to jump through several thousand hoops and destroyed three rainforests in paperwork.”

Thankfully, her licence was granted in the nick of time before she was planning to have her first runner back — two-year-old Betties Bay on the Flat at Newbury.

The filly ran a cracker to be second on her first start which earned her, Georgie and Olive a trip to Royal Ascot.

Olive said: “Mum got the licence in June and our second-ever runner was at Royal Ascot, which isn’t bad going.

“I got annoyed when security kept stopping us to ask us who we were representing — I lost my rag a bit and said ‘actually we have a runner’!

“Mum and I are very different — which is probably why we get on so well.

“We have 28 horses — 14 who are licensed under Rules and 14 who I pre-train and run in points. It works nicely and we have a lovely group of young horses.”

Georgie adds: “We like to get them in as babies and bring them along slowly.

“It’s how they do it in France and it’s rewarding when they go on to have success.”

Olive is in charge of schooling the yard’s jumpers, too. When she’s not injured, that is.

On New Year’s Eve she dislocated her collarbone in a fall at Larkhill point-to-point — but she rode in the next race and won.

Fair to say Georgie doesn’t enjoy watching her daughter in the saddle, as the ITV cameras captured at Cheltenham last year when Olive was third on Shantou Flyer in the Hunter Chase.

Georgie said: “I didn’t know the cameras were on Paul and I until someone sent me pictures a couple of days later which wasn’t fair!

“Before Cheltenham I couldn’t sleep for a week, I looked about 98 by the time the Festival came around.

“I know how much it means to Olive, and I’m aware of all the pressure that comes with being Paul’s daughter, but she is very good and I trust her.

“It doesn’t mean I find it easy, though!”

As much as she’d like to be on his back, Olive will have to watch boyfriend Ben Bromley take the ride on the yard’s promising Thank You Ma’am, potentially at Plumpton on Monday, with her arm in a sling for a couple more weeks.

The five-year-old is owned by the Posh Pundit Racing Club, founded by former William Hill man Rupert Adams.

The horse was named in honour of the late Queen and has done everyone proud in his handful of starts so far.

He was second at Fontwell on Boxing Day and his long-term aim is the valuable EBF Final at Sandown in March.

Georgie said: “We’ve had him since he was broken as a baby. He has been placed in bumpers and run some cracking races over hurdles. He is also the most sociable horse you could meet!

“We walked him round to the pub with some of his owners and he sat outside with us with about 40 people draped all over him.

“He is such a fun horse and has loads of ability. There are some great people in the syndicate, we don’t want it to be like one of these syndicates where 300 people turn up to the yard and see a glimpse of their horse.

“We want our owners to feel part of a smaller, friendlier, family-type operation which is what we can provide.

“Obviously we want to grow the operation but it starts with horses like him — hopefully we’ll soon be back down the pub with Thank You Ma’am after a win!”

Posh Pundit Racing Club chief Adams said: “I’ve been in and around racing for 20 years and can honestly say nothing gives you a buzz quite like racehorse ownership.

“When I left Hills I gave my wife a second heart attack by investing all my redundancy dough in a racehorse — Thank You Ma’am.

“Georgie found us a cracker and the dream is for the club to have a Cheltenham runner of our own soon. Then I really will be saying ‘Thank You Ma’am’ to Georgie!”

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