Introduction by Sir Peter O’Sullevan C.B.E

What a pleasure to pen an inevitably inadequate foreword to this latest exciting Nichola Eddery exhibition which proves a vibrant testimony to the fact that the twenty-first century is a golden era for equine artists.

Like a significant proportion of her foremost senior contemporaries Nichola, passionate about drawing from the moment she could use the pencil, has honed her skills in the classical schools of Italy and France, dedicating three and half years to studying her vocation in Florence, Paris and the Loire Valley.

The result is a stunning ability to portray one of natures’ greater stories – the Thoroughbred Racehorse – with moving tenderness. R.S. Surtees (1803 – 1864) wrote, “There is no secret so close as that between a rider and his horse.”

The relationship which develops between artist and horse may be equally relevant. With the genes of champion riders high up in her pedigree, on both the male and distaff side, who better to connect with the mystical quality of the horse than Miss Eddery?

On Thursday April 24th 1969 in the Daily express I tipped her then seventeen years old dad to ride his first winner in the 2 o’clock at Epsom, suggesting that the subsequent perennial champion was a young man with a future. Pat and Alvaro (6-1) obliged by three lengths. Make no mistake Nichola is another brilliant Eddery Star.

Peter O’Sullevan