St Nicholas Abbey (Number 1- white/purple silks) making his move at the top of the stretch in the 2011 Breeders’ Cup.
There are very few racehorses you’ll hear me talk about with more reverence than Irish superstar St Nicholas Abbey, even seven years after his death.
I’ll admit that I jumped onto the St Nicholas Abbey train a bit late. But once I did, I was hooked on for the ride until the end. My obsession with the Montjeu son came when I just happened to flip on a random Group 3 at Chester in 2011 and he won by nine lengths. By the time he got to the Breeders’ Cup that November, I’d watched most of his races and was excited to see him under the Twin Spires.
That Breeders’ Cup would truly be lifechanging for me because it was the first time that I was a credentialed member of the racing media. I was only about six months from graduating college and while I knew I would do something in the communication field, I was having some senior struggles on deciding if I wanted to work in the racing industry or in another sport.
I can’t tell you exactly what it was about St Nicholas Abbey’s exhilarating win that day or the press conference afterward, just that by the time I walked out of the old Churchill Downs media center I was hooked.
While I had tuned in to watch the big European races for years, because of “Nic” I found myself following other horses at Ballydoyle and tuning into European races more and more. By the time I’d moved into the racing industry full time in late 2012, European racing was a mainstay on my computer every day and before long I found myself the person friends came to with questions about European horses.
When Nic’s injury was announced in late July of 2013 it was a huge blow as the first time one of my favorites had sustained an injury of that magnitude. By that point in his career he’d become my favorite all-time horse and knowing he’d never race again was devasting.
Coolmore’s updates about the horse throughout the healing process was another life changer for me as I realized how much fans love seeing inside horses’ lives. While the lesson came because of one of the worst things that can happen to a horse, it was yet another way he’d helped me develop my ideas and thoughts on the sport.
His death on January 14, 2014 was a shock that had me reeling for a few days, he’d been overcoming so much just to fall to colic. If you ask me who my favorite ever horse is outside of horses I’ve worked with, Nic will always be the first one I name (and talk about until someone cuts me off).
While I was never lucky enough to meet the superstar in person, I’ll always be thankful for what he did for me. From convincing me that horse racing was where I belonged to teaching me lessons even after his career had ended, he’s one of the horses who has impacted my life the most.