Nicole Shahinian Simpson & El Campion's Cirka Z Start Out Strong

A First Timer Shows Her Mettle

Jerez, Spain, Sept 18 - As Nicki Simpson entered the arena on El Campeon's Cirka Z she picked up a canter and then headed towards the middle of the ring where she saluted the judge and then took a quick look around at her first ever World Equestrian Games course. She was the second rider of the four from the U.S. Her teammate Peter Wylde on Fein Cera had gone third in the class and had posted the first clear round and now it was her turn to take her 12-year-old Quidam de Revel, Selle Francais stallion over this 13 fence course with 16 jumping efforts. Her two teammates, Beezie Madden on Judgement and Leslie Howard on Priobert de Kalvarie would go 54th and 78th. She was 27th.

She picked up a canter and looked around and off she went. Cirka was jumping big and bold and clearing the jumps easily. At one point during the course when she was just about to pass the ingate he started to buck and kick out a bit, then went on as if nothing had happened. It wasn't until the very last fence that he met the same fate as so many of the horses that preceded him. He touched a rail on the very last fence and it fell down. But Nicole was happy. He had jumped his heart out for her and she had just begun to live her dream: to represent her country in the World Equestrian Games.

When Beezie Madden's time came she would also jump a strong round but also for her a rail would fall. Leslie Howard had the most problems of all. She came into the ring trotting at a fast clip. After the bell rang she reached forward and gave a sugar cube to Priobert (later explaining that she does that when she passes the water because water makes him just a little nervous ) and started a strong course. However as she got near the end to a triple combination he would knock down the fence and in the scramble Leslie would pull him out of the combination. When she rejumped the combination it was done quite well as if there had never been a problem.

Nicole Simpson was not as veteran in this ring as Olympic Gold and Silver Medalist Howard. The ladder Simpson had climbed to achieve this honor was a relatively short one with many high points along the way. As a junior rider she had won two of the highest events for an equitation rider: the Medal (1990) and Maclay (1992) Championships. For a junior rider winning those classes meant everything. When she turned 18 she worked for the Grubbs for awhile on the East Coast. Eventually she made a move from the East Coast to the West Coast, when she started working for the Gonda family.