Alice Cairns talks to blind dressage rider, Nicola Naylor, about sight loss, setbacks and strength...
Within minutes of meeting Nicola Naylor, you can tell that she’s an animal lover. Not only is this champion dressage rider a huge fan of horses, but she also shares her Clapham home with no fewer than five extravagantly fluffy cats (Norwegian forest cats, I’m told). Valiantly concealing the fact that I’m allergic to both cats and horses, I venture within.
And as I watch Nicola manoeuvre her way through a veritable sea of kitties, I have to keep reminding myself that she’s blind.
Having lost her sight to a congenital degenerative disorder, she has only a minute amount of light perception in one eye. Despite this, she navigates nimbly around her home, skipping down the stairs, ushering me to the sofa, and juggling tea and biscuits with consummate ease.
But that’s Nicola all over: she refuses to let her blindness hold her back.
Dressage riding is a sport that requires almost inhuman amounts of precision, control and skill. Nicola competes in para- and able-bodied divisions of the sport, and excels in both. This year, her ambition is to ride Grand Prix (the highest level test) and to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics.
Nicola spent her childhood on horseback, continually badgering her parents to let her have a pony of her own. She’d watch showjumping on television for hours, scrutinizing every movement. As soon as she was provided with the requisite pony, she began to ride competitively.
But it couldn’t last.
“I had to stop when I was 16,” Nicola explains.
“At that age, show-jumpers are expected to move from a pony to a horse. I was partially sighted, which meant that I couldn’t see the fence I needed to jump until the very last moment. Ponies are able to compensate for that because they’re clever. Horses can’t”
And then, when she was studying at university, Nicola lost the rest of her sight.
“I was very unwell and spent my 20s in and out of the hospital. I didn’t think any more about riding after that.”
In fact, it would be 32 years before Nicola would ride again.
“When my daughter was about five, she decided that she wanted to ride. We spent our holidays in France, and I’d take her to riding lessons. I loved listening to the language, and to the sounds of riding. It was all so familiar.”
Nicola’s daughter, like her mother before her, campaigned successfully for a pony. One day, her trainer asked Nicola a fateful question: ‘Why don’t you get back on?’
“And so I did. It was really as simple as that. It was like getting back on a bike. I realized that even if I could never showjump again, there was no reason why I couldn’t try dressage. “
Nicola practised first on her daughter’s pony, and then graduated to dressage horses. It was love at first trot.
“I love the athleticism, the elasticity, the suppleness that you’re creating. It’s like a dance on horseback. There’s a tremendous, intense focus during training – creating those precise movements can sometimes take years of work, and I like that. And it’s a partnership, too – you’re working with an animal and producing the very best that it can give you.”
When Nicola decided to commit to dressage, she went in search of the perfect trainer. She found Dan Watson, based in Kent – a former Grand Prix rider, and a skilled trainer of horses and people.
So how does it work, exactly?
A dressage arena is punctuated by setpoints, each marked with a letter. Riders and their horses stop at these letters and perform movements. When Nicola rides, Dan stands in the middle of the arena and calls out the letters as she approaches them.
“It took work, of course, but now it’s become normal for me. My lack of sight doesn’t have to hold me back.”
Which isn’t to say that there aren’t challenges. Nicola deeply regrets that she’s unable to watch video footage of her own performance, or learn from video footage of other riders. Making sure that the horse is pointing in the right direction can also be a challenge, as Nicola relies on this to orientate herself in the arena.
Then there’s the practical problem of her commute to Kent, which she does about four times a week.
“I take public transport in rush hour, which can be difficult. It takes two hours each way, and I can find it very stressful at times. But it’s worth it to work with Dan.”
And Nicola refuses to feel sorry for herself. Whether she’s riding in para- or able-bodied competitions, she feels privileged to be part of a community of resourceful athletes performing at the top of their game.
“It’s not easy, but don’t ever feel that the world of sport is closed to you. You just have to push on and keep working. I’ve learned that people are so resourceful. If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way to do it!”
Nicola recommends the RDA: Riding for the Disabled Association. The Diamond Centre for Disabled Riders in Carshalton offers facilities to enable disabled children and adults to ride. Rda.org.uk; diamondcentre.org.uk