Hollard Equipage

A love of horses is in its heart and soul

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Nicole Giraud White’s love affair with horses began when she was nine years old. Little did she realise back then that horses would define her life and career – and even bring her and her husband together.

As a youngster Nicole rode competitively, participating in eventing and show jumping. In the latter discipline, she rode a thoroughbred named Brutal Juice who, at 23 years old, is still very much in her life.

“I’ve never connected with another horse like I have with him,” she says.

Horses are special in the bonds they form with humans, she believes: “I don’t see horses as animals. They’re also not pets. A horse almost becomes like your soulmate.”

Speaking of soulmates, it was thanks to Brutal Juice that she eventually met her husband, James. A skittish mount, as thoroughbreds can be, she struggled to take Brutal Juice on outrides – until someone suggested she contact James, who specialises (among other things) in breaking in horses.

Nicole’s love for horses found expression in her career, too, when she joined Equipage, the specialist equine insurer founded in 1996 by her mother, Zelda de Wit. Fifteen years later, she heads the operation.

Equipage was acquired in 2019 by Hollard, South Africa’s largest independent insurer and one of South Africa’s top 30 companies by value, and recently rebranded as Hollard Equipage. The new brand is thus, to use an equine expression (and reference Hollard’s principal corporate colour), bred in the purple.