A Q&A with Summer Nicholls – Swiftclean’s sponsored rider

We’ll start with a Q&A session with Summer, our sponsored event rider and then find out how her 2024 season is progressing with her two horses Alfie, and ex racehorse Hugo (Hooves the Daddy).

How did you get into horse riding?

I grew up in a family passionate about horses. My love for equestrian sport started at a very young age. In fact, I was sitting on a horse before I could even walk, and the first competition I attended was when I was just weeks old! I have three older sisters, all of whom owned and competed with horses, and my mom has owned horses since her teenage years. I used to attend all their competitions and couldn’t wait to start competing myself.

I joined my local Pony Club (Essex Union South) at a young age and began competing and representing the club. I qualified for my first nationals at 12-years-old with my special pony, Penny, who is still owned by my family and is now teaching my nieces and nephews how to ride.

I represented the club in U16’s and U18s, as well as Eastern England for two years in British Eventing. I then progressed to international level eventing and completed an apprenticeship in Advanced Sporting Excellence. Despite the time and expense, as well as a full time job,I continue to compete almost every weekend outside of work.

What is eventing?

Eventing involves three separate disciplines: Dressage, Showjumping and Cross-Country, the aim being to get the lowest possible score. Over each phase you can pick up penalties causing your score to rise. Finishing on your dressage score is considered to be a very good result, as it rarely happens!

The first discipline is Dressage, which is a series of regimented movements that you present to a judge, most of you will recognise this as ‘the dancing horses’. The idea is to show complete harmony between horse and rider, it must look perfect, as each movement is scored between 1-10.

Show jumping involves jumping a seri