Nico de Boinville

Ahead of a high-profile Christmas campaign, the jockey with more Grade One wins than any of his peers tells Catherine Austen how his childhood prepared him for racing's pressures

"I LOVE top-class horses - it doesn't matter what they do," says Nico de Boinville.

Well, he's ridden enough of them as first jockey to Nicky Henderson's Goliath of a National Hunt yard; enough for him to have 16 Cheltenham Festival winners under his belt and multiple Grade One victories on the likes of Sprinter Sacre, Altior, Constitution Hill, Jonbon and so on.

He is a brilliant big-race jockey who, at 35, has no interest in driving the length and breadth of Britain chasing small fish, but keeps himself in the best physical shape he can for the stream of Seven Barrows' stars that appear. But it's fascinating to study the eclectic foundations that underpin Nico's success in the (racing) saddle.

At the age of eight, he was showing ponies at Horse of the Year Show (HOYS) for producers Marjorie and Richard Ramsay, and others - excellent preparation in riding under pressure and in the spotlight. He won one of the early SEIB Search for a Star championships at HOYS on Barkway Black Magic in 1998.

"I loved it - when you're eight and nine at HOYS, it's so much fun," he says.

His early equestrian life wasn't just "standing on the ramp and looking pretty and getting chucked on", though.

While his mother Shaunagh "didn't like the thrills and spills" and was into showing and dressage, his grandmother enjoyed eventing - his aunt, Phillippa Chamings, won a young rider silver medal and rode round Badminton - and she bought Nico "rough and ready ponies" that he made himself and which took him hunting with the Vine and Craven and hunter trialling.