Biography

It will be a first Badminton for British rider Nicholas Lucey (25) who is based near Burford in Oxfordshire. With Badminton entry Proud Courage Nicholas made his four-star debut in 2017 at Luhmuhlen.

Nicholas was a member of the Heythrop Pony Club and has twice won the National Pony Club Championships and in 2009 won the Open Cross Country Horsemanship bursary. He now teaches at PC. In 2015 Nick gained a BSc in Microbiology from Reading and returned home to concentrate on horses. He currently runs the yard at Owl House stables, a livery, training and rehab yard run by his mother, former four-star rider and trainer Miranda Lucey – she has a Badminton Armada dish for five completions. His father Mark is a vet formerly with Bourton Vale Equine and was team vet to the Under 21 eventing team and the Spanish eventing team and has attended five Olympic Games as a team vet.

During his gap year Nicholas spent three months in Thailand teaching English. Nicholas trains with Simon Lawrence and Jay Halim.

Proud Courage, (aka Peter) owned by the rider, is a 14-year-old Irish-bred gelding. He is by the Irish-based Holstein Courage II (also the sire of Ringwood Sky Boy) out of Coolmore Panther (ISH) by the thoroughbred Proud Panther (by Blakeney). His half-brother, Coolmore Lad, competed to intermediate with Vicky Brake before being sold to America. Proud Courage was acquired from the late Tom Searle as a six-year-old and has since been produced by Nicholas through the grades. The pair contested their first three-star in 2014 and in 2017 completed their first four-star at Luhmuhlen.