Royal Ascot 2023: The little-known trainer of Wise Eagle flying high in the Gold Cup

Adam Nicol, forced to retire from the saddle after a succession of injuries, tackles Royal Ascot's oldest race with only the second horse to join his fledgling Seahouses stable

Former jump jockey turned trainer Adam Nicol is used to collecting long distance prizes.

He had the first six finishers from the pick of his team who competed last weekend. But the best performer in his yard is not one of his 150 racing pigeons, but a horse named Wise Eagle.

The six-year-old, bought for just 7,000gns, was the second horse to join Nicol’s fledgling operation when he retired from the saddle in 2020 after a torrid battle with serious injuries.

Under Nicol he has been transformed from a 67-rated handicapper into a money spinner, winning 11 races and over £150,000 in prize money.

Following victory at Musselburgh in April, he went to Ascot where he finished second to Coltrane in the Group 2 Sagaro Stakes.

With his official rating having climbed to 107, Wise Eagle will swoop on the royal meeting’s oldest race, the £600,000 2m4f Gold Cup, to try to put the 33-year-old Nicol and the tiny Northumberland coastal village of Seahouses, already a tourist magnet, on the racing map.

“It’s a good underdog story,” says Nicol. “There is no pressure but we are going there with a small chance of picking up some prize-money.

“It would be good to win it. He would have to run a career best. He finished second to Coltrane but I am sure if Andrew Balding or John Gosden trained him he wouldn’t be 33-1. Wise Eagle has been underestimated so many times. People don’t think he has a chance, yet he keeps winning.”

As a jockey Nicol was synonymous with the popular jumps mare Lady Buttons who won 12 races under him. But he never got to ride her at the Cheltenham Festival as a result of two horrific injuries.

"It was horrendous,” he recalls. “I broke my femur and I was out for ten months.

“I managed to get back two or three weeks before Lady Buttons won the mares’ Listed hurdle at the Charlie Hall meeting at Wetherby on ITV. My partner Jenny Durrens led me up. It was one of my best days in racing.

“But I was only back about six to eight weeks and I broke my back on Boxing Day at Sedgefield. I managed to get back the week before Cheltenham. I had four rides and then Covid kicked in and racing shut down. That’s when I called it a day.”

Within seven months he was training from his mother Marion’s former riding school with two horses, one of them Wise Eagle.

Bought as a dual purpose horse to go hurdling first, he finished second at Catterick but Nicol changed tack after he won a jumpers’ bumper at Newcastle.

“He beat a horse called Dear Sire of Donald McCain’s who was a decent hurdler in the north. I stuck him back on the Flat. He won an all-weather race at Newcastle and we’ve never really looked back.”

At his busiest, Nicol has had nine horses, who often train on the beach, while he also attends to his pigeon loft, a hobby since he was eight. At Ascot he will go up against yards that have teams in the hundreds.

“There will not be many racehorse trainers rocking up to Ascot that train pigeons,” says Nicol. “I just love training things.”

He adds: “Jenny has worked with some big yards like Godolphin and William Haggas and spent two years with Phil Kirby when I was there.

“We do everything to the best standard we possibly can but we are a very small family run business. My Dad Ian harrows the gallops.

“We are taking on the likes of Aidan O’Brien, Andrew Balding., Godolphin, Roger Varian, Charlie Johnston.

“Their setups and facilities are second to none. We are just small fry, but I love that.

“I am going there with no pressure. Just to get there is fantastic. It’s a great journey we are on.”