STARTER'S ORDERS

As she joins ITV's presenting team at Ascot, Megan Nicholls is relishing life out of the saddle

- MIRANDA THOMPSON

With the exciting return of Royal Ascot in all its glorious pageantry this week, former jockey Megan Nicholls is preparing to stand on the “other side of the hedge” as a part of ITV Racing’s presenting line-up.

“It’s like racing’s Met Gala,” she says with a smile in this exclusive interview with HELLO!. “I’m very lucky.”

The flat racing meeting has always been important to the royal family and it was a firm favourite of Queen Elizabeth II – as Megan can attest. One of the unforgettable highlights of her life was the day Her Majesty visited her father, champion trainer Paul Nicholls, at his racing yard in Somerset in 2019.

ROYAL APPROVAL

Paul is a renowned jump racing trainer with thousands of winners to his name but the Queen, as Megan remembers, was “very much a flat racing fan”. After the royal had dished out Polo mints and carrots to the horses, Paul introduced her to his daughter, who was then a professional jockey on the flat.

“She was delighted,” Megan says. “She said: ‘Oh! Oh! Are you going for your Ascot?’” Go for it Megan did. After making her racing debut at the age of 16, she went on to ride 110 winners during her nine-year career, winning a coveted “massive, gorgeous bowl” for a Limited race at the famous Berkshire course in 2021.