Adrian Whiteway

From crying en route to his first riding lesson to being on the multi-garlanded British showjumping squad, Adrian Whiteway tells Eleanor Jones about his rise up the ranks

- By Eleanor Jones

IN 2015, Adrian Whiteway won the SEIB winter novice final at Hickstead. A decade later, on that famous turf, he jumped clear for his country in a home five-star Nations Cup.

Weeks previously, Adrian had been on the squad for the five-star Aachen Nations' Cup. Weeks afterwards, he was on the squad that won the Longines League of Nations in St Tropez, then the final in Barcelona – as Adrian said: “It’s been a hell of a year.”

Asked what he would have said after that novice win had someone told him what 2025 would hold, would he have believed it?

“I wouldn’t have believed it if you’d told me a year ago,” he says. “It felt a long way away, like it was never going to happen.”

Adrian’s journey started in eventing – but had he had his way, it might never have started at all, without his mother, who had ridden as a child.

“She got me into it as a kid and forced me to my first lesson,” he explains. “I cried all the way there!

“My sister was riding but it didn’t interest me. Mum picked me up from a friend’s, I said, ‘Where are we going?’ and she said, ‘For a riding lesson.’ I cried as I didn’t want to go.”

But luckily, and as always, mother knew best, and “I loved it”, Adrian adds.

“I was hooked. Mum still says, ‘It’s all because of me!’”

By 15, Adrian was eventing; winning at intermediate and contesting young rider trials. But something was missing.

“I always preferred showjumping,” he says. “I was never a massive lover of cross-country; I’d gone to Badminton and realised I had no aspiration to do it myself. I thought, ‘Why am I doing a sport I don’t want to get to the top of?’”

But showjumping was different. Adrian had younger horses better suited to jumping, so he sold the eventers and made the switch: “It was daunting but it sort of fell into place,” he says. “I was fully committed; I was going to make it work, no matter what.”