Nicole Brown is Head of Media at EquiRatings and is the dynamic host of popular equestrian podcasts ‘When Nicole Met’ and ‘Alphabetti Spaghetti’. Here we speak to Nicole about her podcasts, the upcoming 2024 Olympics, and her love of all things equine!
Nicole, you run one of the leading equine podcasts in the world, please can you tell me how it all started?
Absolutely! It all began in 2016 when I became friends with Diarm Byrne and Sam Watson, the co-founders of EquiRatings, while working together on the Event Rider Masters Series. They noticed a significant gap in the market for event previews and reviews and invited me to join a new podcast they were launching. This was around the time when podcasts were just starting to gain popularity.
We were amazed by the journey our podcast has taken. What started as a few friends discussing eventing has grown into an award-winning podcast with over 4 million unique listens worldwide. We now offer a variety of shows, from previewing and reviewing major events to specialist interviews with top riders, educational segments, and even the occasional fun show that’s not strictly about eventing. You can listen for free to the Eventing Podcast here and with over 1,000 episodes there is also quite a back catalogue of shows to enjoy!
Which is the most exciting podcast you have ever done and why?
We’ve been lucky to do so many great podcasts over the years. I think a couple stand out to me and they are actually both shows we did with Badminton Horse Trials. The first one was Broadcasting Badminton which features Clare Balding and Michael Cole who is the BBC Producer for Badminton. Diarm and I travelled to London to record (actually in the offices that Ant and Dec use!) and it was a great insight into what it takes to produce top event coverage of a big event. Personally, I am a huge Clare Balding fan as she’s a real trailblazer for women in sports broadcasting, so that’s definitely one of them. As it happened, we recorded in February 2020 and then covid hit so it actually didn’t get released until nearly two years later!!
The other is one of our most popular shows that we’ve ever done and it features Pippa Funnell and Andrew Nicholson alongside two Badminton first-timers in Lauren Innes and Kylie Roddy, giving their insight into Badminton and what makes it special.
Do you have a background in horses yourself?
I do, I was completely pony-mad growing up and absolutely loved anything to do with horses. I evented myself (not terribly well I admit!) up to Intermediate level but I am definitely better at talking about it than I am doing it now!
Do you and/or your family still ride?
With a young family and a very busy career, I am not riding nearly as often as I would like at the moment – however I am plotting a mid-life comeback when the boys are older! Toby, aged 5, is not too interested in horses, he much prefers big tractors and machinery, but Benny is only a few months old so I live in hope that he might be keen one day – we’ll see!!
Now we are heading into the Olympics, you know the eventing competitors well, what are your predictions?
It’s going to be a great Games for sure. The Brits are very strong with Ros Canter, Laura Collett and Tom McEwen all heading up the individual EquiRatings Prediction Centre which means that the British Eventing team are very strong favourites for gold. The biggest individual challenger is surely the double Olympic Champion Michael Jung, his horse, Fischer Chipmunk FRH, has been in the mix at the top of the leaderboard so many times but is yet to win a major championship title, I can’t help but feel that Paris might be his time. For the team competition keep an eye on the US, it’s been 20 years since they were last on a team podium (bronze in Athens), but they’ve been building a great string of horses and will come in here full of confidence.
Are you yourself going to be at the Olympics?
I won’t be at the Olympics, but we have a full schedule of Eventing Podcast content to keep you up to date and entertained! The Preview Shows are out now, and we’ll have lots of behind the scenes content this week and a team that covers the Games that includes insights from the likes of Nicola Wilson, Tina Cook, Kylie Roddy, Mark Ruddock, and more. There will be daily reaction shows to keep you updated through the competition too and keep an eye out on our social media channels for some live shows as well. You can listen to all of the shows for free by clicking here.
Bedmax and Strawmax love being associated with your podcasts especially Alphabetti Spaghetti with Strawmax. How do you come up with the ideas for this particular podcast?
We love working with honest, genuine and brilliant brands like Bedmax and Strawmax and it’s a partnership that has been going strong for a few years now. We cover all the big name interviews on the Bedmax When Nicole Met Series, with guests such as Ros Canter, Piggy March, William Fox-Pitt and many more. For Strawmax, the Alphabetti Spaghetti series is definitely a lot more wild! It was a concept that Diarm came up with a few years ago and working through the alphabet the show sees a panel of guests give their reaction to topics beginning with that letter sent in by our listeners. Safe to say the links can be loose and it’s not very eventing related but it’s great fun!
What does the future hold for the equating channel?
There are lots of exciting plans in the pipeline, including a big focus on Jumping which has grown over the last couple of years. You can listen to our sister show, The Jumping Podcast here and also follow @EquiRatings_ShowJumping for lots of great insights into the sport.
For the Eventing Podcast we have lots of exciting plans coming up, including the build up to Burghley which I know is a Bedmax favourite too!
If it wasn’t a horse, what would be your favourite car and why?
I love my Toyota Hilux! It takes me absolutely anywhere and the tailgate is a perfect height as an impromptu changing table for a baby!
What is your favourite equine book?
I loved the Silver Brumby books by Elyne Mitchell growing up. I’d thoroughly recommend them to any young (or old!) horse fan.
