The 20-year-old amateur jump jockey made the announcement after completing a double at Newton Abbot on Wednesday, taking her score to 25
Olive Nicholls will become full-time assisant to Dad Paul (Image: Tom Sandberg/PPAUK/Shutterstock)
Up and coming amateur jockey Olive Nicholls has quit the saddle take on a key role for her champion trainer Dad.
In a brief riding career the 20-year-old, younger sister of ITV racing regular Meg Nicholls, has enjoyed success in point-to-points and under rules, enjoying her biggest victory when Viroflay, trained by 14-time champion Paul Nicholls, won a handicap chase at Kempton in December.
She scored again on Viroflay at Newton Abbot on Wednesday and went on to complete a double on Golden Son, part-owned by legendary former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson on the same card. The successes brought her score under rules to 25, 18 of which were trained by her Dad and four by her Mum, Georgina Nicholls.
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Paul posted on X, “Mighty proud of @NichollsOlive who after riding a double on Viroflay and Golden Son @NewtonAbbotRace retired from race riding, with a total of 25 NH wins and numerous point to points . What a way to go out.”
“I’ve been thinking about it this season,” Olive told Mirror Racing. “I have always loved the training side of the sport and I have basically been riding for fun.
“I loosely decided that I would stop at the end of the season and I couldn’t have finished in a better way than last night. It felt like the right time to do it then. Both horses had good chances and are pretty special to me. For them to both win was perfect.”
Olive Nicholls with Dad Paul and Mum Georgina after announcing her retirement(Image: Tom Sandberg/PPAUK/Shutterstock)
Olive has experience of running her own point-to-point and pre-training yard and rode 28 winners between the flags. She was pupil assistant at her father’s famous Ditcheat stables during the latest campaign.
“I have now moved up to assistant to Dad, which was always the route I wanted to go down,” she added. “So hopefully that is the start of the next chapter.
“Ultimately I would like to train in the long run and that is the direction I am heading. I couldn’t have a better person to learn from than my father.”