Bryony Frost

The National Hunt jockey talks to Hannah Lemieux about her debut season as a professional — and the pressure of riding for Paul Nicholls

BRYONY FROST reflects on a whirlwind 12 months as we sit in the cosy weighing room at Wincanton Racecourse where, just a few weeks before, she had ridden to her biggest win to date in the Listed Badgers Ale Trophy aboard Present Man. It was a race her father, Jimmy Frost, won 21 years previously, and was a popular local victory as the race sponsors also owned the horse.

“My world has gone mad and I can’t keep up with it,” she laughs, as we discuss the media frenzy she has faced since teaming up so successfully with 10-time champion trainer Paul Nicholls.

The 22-year-old flourished on the point to-point and hunter chase field as an amateur the interview jockey — racking up 65 wins — culminating in her brilliant Cheltenham Foxhunter triumph with the Paul Nicholls-trained Pacha Du Polder in March.

Since then, she has been cast into racing’s limelight, turning professional in the summer with the full support of the leading National Hunt trainer, for whom she has worked fulltime for the past two years — she soon has to dash back to the Somerset yard for evening stables.

BRYONY has race-riding in her blood. Her father won the 1989 Grand National and now trains from Bryony’s family home on the edge of Dartmoor, while her mother Nikki successfully trains point to-pointers. Bryony’s first winner between the flags came aboard Top Green, trained by her mother. One of her older brothers, Hadden, was also a professional jockey before hanging up his racing boots aged 24. But there is a noticeable steely grit and determination about Bryony that suggests it is more than just “good genes” that have honed her skills in the saddle — she’s tough, works hard and can hold her own in a male-dominated world.