Nicola Hayward (pic supplied)
Most people who read Thoroughbred publications will have come across the name Nicola Hayward via her contributions to HQ Magazine, International Racehorse Magazine, Thoroughbred Owner & Breeder and Thoroughbredinternet.com. What is less well-known is that she recently struck out into fiction writing and not only that, is self-published, surely the ultimate in chutzpah and putting your money where your mouth is. Nicola’s debut novel, Fenella, was published in April 2015 and she has just produced ‘Blake’, the second in her Caversham Trilogy.
Launch
Book launch at Groot Constantia
The book launch was held on Thursday, 26 November 2015 at the Groot Constantia tasting room. It was a warm and intimate affair, attended by friends, fans and family and offered the opportunity to chat to Nicola, purchase copies of her books and chat over a glass of Groot Constantia’s finest.
Nicola was born in Pietermaritzburg on 12 June 1964, just a week after Northern Dancer failed to find his trademark finish in the 1964 Belmont Stakes at Aqueduct and lost the Triple Crown. A career in biochemistry is not the most conventional way of getting into horses, but of course, when it comes to horses the joy is that there is no ‘conventional’ way of doing anything. Nicola grew up in Hilton in the Natal Midlands, the only daughter of a paediatrician and a retired nursing sister. Expelled from ballet classes at the age of 6, by way of compensation or perhaps apology, the teacher suggested horse riding as an alternative, as the little girl refused to join any of the class activities other than skipping around the room like a horse. The die was cast.
A series of ponies and horses followed and Nicola made it onto the KZN Dressage team three times as a junior, before adult life beckoned and she had to put away equestrian pursuits in exchange for university studies. She enrolled at Wits University and embarked on a medical degree, which lasted a year. Encountering her assigned cadaver at the beginning of her second year convinced Nicola that medicine was not for her and she switched to a BSc, majoring in Biochemistry and Genetics. At the end of her honours year, Nicola moved to Cape Town to complete her Masters in Medical Biochemistry, after which she joined the UCT Medical School to teach physiology.
Back in the saddle
It was during the last year of her studies that Nicola took up riding again, exercising an old showjumper belonging to the Hursts in Tokai forest. “Just after Neil and I got married in 1987, I bought my first horse. He was my first Thoroughbred and was a Del Sarto gelding. The vet said he’d never be sound, but I loved him and bought him and he never gave me a day’s trouble. I rode him till I was 7 months pregnant with Caitlin.”
In 1996, they bought a farm in the Ceres Karoo. “We bought some riding horses, which grew into a little breeding thing. I bought 2 nice mares at mare auctions, and we thought we would try our hand at Thoroughbred breeding. We didn’t live on the farm, which made things difficult. The horses used to go to Daytona for covering, prep etc and eventually Mike Barnard said to me ‘you’re wasting money’ and we were. It wasn’t a viable thing to do like that and eventually we sold the farm.”
Writing
“In 2004 there was breeders’ conference at Somerset College and it had two days of the most amazing speakers. Tony Morris was one of the speakers – just as a journo he’s legendary, but to hear him stand up and present for an hour with no notes was just amazing. He had the nerve to call one of our leading breeders a snake charmer! The next evening was finished off by Ian Balding, who talked a lot about Mill Reef and the decline in Thoroughbreds’ psychological ability to deal with racing stress. It was fascinating. At the time, we were members of the Warmblood Society. They sent out a monthly newsletter and a month later, they sent out a report that Ian Balding had died which I knew was incorrect as I’d just seen him speak. I phoned the Warmblood Society and explained that they’d got their names mixed up and that I’d just seen Ian at the Breeders Club conference. They thought the conference sounded so interesting that they asked me to write a report on it. Then they asked me to write a monthly newsletter contribution. Because I was involved in breeding at the time, I often chose to write about Thoroughbred subjects such as colour and coat genetics. Then HQ Magazine asked to have Warmblood news sent in and for some reason or other they asked me to write for them. The TBA sponsored the HQ’s Thoroughbred pages for about 2 years which I did for them, but eventually they pulled the plug as they weren’t seeing a return on their investment.” Nicola also wrote for the Thoroughbredinternet.com until the market crash as well for the UK’s Owner & Breeder. When the International Racehorse published an article on the great races of the world, they left out the Epsom Derby and when Nicola wrote in to set them straight, she ended up contributing a number of pieces for them too.
Change of direction
When her teaching position at UCT came to an end, Nicola joined husband Neil, helping to run his busy dental practice. That, along with raising their daughters Caitlin and Micci and running a household kept her pretty busy. Nicola says she can’t remember what prompted her to do it, but felt she needed something to keep herself interested and inspired and enrolled for a creative writing course at UCT. “It really was the most amazingly inspirational thing and it’s well worth investigating for anyone who is interested in a career in writing. It’s an interactive course, so what you put in is what you get out. We had Ron Irwin (celebrated author of Flat Water Tuesday) as our lecturer. Even after completing the course, he has continued to provide me with outstanding advice.”
River Jetez
Out of the course came the idea to write a book, which ultimately culminated in Fenella. “What I found fascinating was that the year after Pocket Power won the Met, his full sister River Jetez should win it too. The girls and I were talking about it and said ‘Imagine if twins could do that?’ That was the instance for thinking about a story. Although I always thought it would be nice to write a book, I never found a subject I wanted to write about. Somehow I found a story. I can’t tell you how or why – it was just there and it came very easily.”
Nicola’s first draft was very lengthy and she says “when I eventually turned the whole thing on its head, I had to cut out a lot that I liked but didn’t have space for.” So she decided to package it into a sequel. “The third part came about more because I promised a trilogy!”
Publication
Fenella – Book 1 in the Caversham Stud trilogy
Of course, writing a book is one thing, getting it published is another matter entirely. “Ron (Irwin) said that writing the book was the easy part and I didn’t believe that could be true, but it was. I rewrote the ‘ms’ four times, but trying to get it published has been heart-breaking.” She eventually opted to self-publish. “South Africa only has two publishing houses that publish fiction – Random House (which has amalgamated with Penguin) and Tafelberg. Neither of them showed any interest in Fenella, so I decided to self-publish and put it on Amazon and see how we go. I might still try going through a formal publisher, but I thought it might be better to wait until I had a readership.”
Fenella duly hit the shelves in April 2015. Well, the electronic shelves at any rate as a lot of mainstream retailers won’t carry her book. However, Nicola is undaunted and focussing her energies on smaller bookshops instead. “I didn’t do a big launch for Fenella as I just wanted to see how it would go. We’ve only been marketing it on Facebook and by word of mouth through my husband’s practice – word of mouth is still the best way of getting things out there.”
Feedback
Fenella has been warmly received and the feedback has been very positive, including a glowing review from Cosmo’s Jean Raphaely, who pronounced it ‘A thrilling book about horses and crooks – Nicola Hayward is South Africa’s Dick Francis.’ Nicola says, “For me, that means more than having it published outside. One or two people have said that it’s not the sort of book they would normally read and that they only bought it because they know I wrote it, but that they had enjoyed it. And quite a few people said they’d read it and learnt a lot about breeding and racing, which is really nice too, so perhaps I will look at trying to publish it again later. In the meantime, it’s fantastic to get phone calls and when people say it’s wonderful and they weren’t able to put it down, it’s just wonderful and makes all that time and effort worthwhile.”
Nicola also thinks that fiction is a good way to get racing to a wider audience. “Micci and I went to the recent CTS Sales Race and it was so sad not to see more people there. As a spectator sport, racing does seem to have lost something – I don’t know why. I think a book like this could be very powerfully used as a marketing tool. A movie of a story like this would be fantastic. Look at what the Secretariat and War Horse films have done to open people’s minds. However, it’s important not to romanticise it. Younger people seem to have an idea of riches and winning and none of the real hardships that go with it. I think it’s important that one doesn’t lose sight of that.”
Colourful cast
Fenella is set in KZN and follows the story of a young girl named Fenella Schmidt. Orphaned after her parents are shot, Fenella needs to fend for her grandparents and takes the job of a knacker on Caversham Stud, which is owned by Blake Hughes and situated in the KZN Midlands. Despite the knacker angle, it is a wonderfully light, entertaining read and the pages turn surprisingly easily. There is drama, intrigue and plenty of fun. Despite being fictional entertainment, the realistic descriptions of the goings on of farm life will have many nodding their heads and smiling. Nicola also confesses that she created her characters as composites of local racing places and personalities and there are a number of local turf characters and locations immortalised by Nicola’s pen, which rather adds to the fun. Two of the animal stars are also based on Caitlin’s junior horse, Brandenburg Riviera and Brown Dog is lifted wholesale from the Hayward family’s German Wire-haired Pointer.
Blake – Book 2 in the Caversham trilogy
As book one was so well received, Nicola decided to have a proper launch for her second book, Blake. After getting to know Fenella and the cast of characters in the first book, Blake is more of a who-dunnit and sees Blake wrongfully accused of a murder he didn’t commit. I won’t spoil the end for anyone, but suffice to say Fenella, Brown Dog, Riviera and Jinja have a number of ups, downs and adventures before the last page is turned.
Nicola is hard at work on book number three and hoping to have it completed by next April and she also has an additional project in the pipeline about a horse that serves in the Boer War. If you’re looking for a Christmas stocking filler, a fun read to take along to the beach or while away the long days of the summer holidays, you could do a lot worse than snaffling a copy of Fenella, available to order online from Amazon. Otherwise, simply contact Nicola through her website http://nicolahayward.co.za, or drop her a line at [email protected] or on 072 455 0695 to place an order. You can currently get both books for R450.
