Nicola Jane Cook & Kevin Crosby at Angelstone
On September 4th, 2016, Nicola Jane Cook was honored with the first annual 2016 Angelstone Tournaments Trainer of the Year Award. This Award celebrates the dedication and commitment of exemplary individuals who inspire, innovate and share knowledge of equine sport with others.
Cook is originally from New Zealand and has been training horses for 15 years. Her introduction to horses goes back even further: “My first pony was born three months old before I was born, and it was always going to be my pony,” explained Cook. Nonetheless, an equine career wasn’t the original plan. “After graduating from Teachers College, I decided to go back to my horse roots and took a job at Kennycourt Stud Farm in Ireland,” explained Cook. “It was a life changing experience. I realized my greatest talent was developing young horses.”
Cook’s job at Kennycourt sparked a long and enduring career in the equestrian industry. Her time in the UK took her from working with young thoroughbreds at top stud farms all the way to training a Gold Medal team rider, Syed Omar Almodzar, at the South East Asian Games in 2007. After her success with Almodzar, Cook entered the upper echelons of the Showjumping sport. Shortly after her success at the SEA Games, Cook was hired by Millar Brook Farm as a trainer for Amy Millar and soon started working directly with Ian Millar. After two years at Millarbrook, Cook went back to the UK to work for the Whitakers. “Getting to a point in my career where I was able to train for Ian Millar and Michael Whitaker was something I never would have dreamt of as a girl in New Zealand. And neither were the results that we got!” Cook humbly refers to three more Team Gold medals in Wellington FL, Dublin, and Hickstead, some of the most prestigious show venues in the world.
An injury forced Cook to suspend her equine training activities, but in 2016 she was back, working as a trainer at Mariana Savage’s Harthill Farm in Wellington, Florida.
In the short time she has worked at Harthill Farm, Cook has re-established a tremendous reputation as a trainer, imparting skills to help make some of Ms. Savage’s home-bred jumpers top level competitors. Cook proudly points to her work this circuit with Harthill’s 6-year-old mare, Cirie. Standing at 17hh, Cirie’s size was a challenge: “She needed to do a lot of conditioning because she’s such a big horse,” explained Cook. It took Cook a few weeks to get Cirie’s program right but the mare excelled in the highly competitive 6-year-old classes throughout the summer. Cirie’s season culminated with a 4th place finish in the coveted Angelstone Tournaments Canadian 6-year-old finals.
Cook emphasizes simplicity in her training methodology. As Cook says, “It’s about getting the best from yourself and your horse. There’s a fine line between doing enough and too much.”