Nicola Wilson’s Scottish open champion Bee Diplomatic retires

Nicola Wilson’s four-star ride Bee Diplomatic has been retired from eventing.

Bee Diplomatic, a half-brother to Nicola’s British team regular Opposition Buzz, was entered for this year’s Mitsubishi Motors Badminton Horse Trials, but withdrawn a couple of weeks ago before the event was cancelled.

Nicola has now announced on her website that he has been retired from eventing “due to a few ongoing niggling problems”.

The 12-year-old was bred by his owner Rosemary Search, out of the Java Tiger mare Jungle Bee, by State Diplomacy. He started his eventing career with Katherine Heslop, before Jeanette Brakewell took over in 2006 and produced him to two-star level.

Bee Diplomatic moved to Nicola’s yard in 2010 and his best result with her was winning the Scottish open championships at Blair last year. He was also 10th at Bramham CCI*** 2010, sixth there in 2011 and 18th at Pau CCI**** last year. He earned 361 British Eventing points during his career.

“How lovely for Rosemary to have bred two horses [Bee Diplomatic and Opposition Buzz] that competed at four-star level,” said Nicola on her website. “He [Bee Diplomatic] will now retire to do dressage and hopefully have a lot more success.”

Nicola had planned to run Opposition Buzz at Badminton, but is now among the London Olympic hopefuls re-routing to Chatsworth this weekend (12-13 May).

Pippa Roome

H&H magazine editor and eventing editor

Pippa is a true eventing geek and has been H&H’s eventing editor since 2005. She has first-hand experience of competing up to British Eventing intermediate and international CCI2*-L level, and has worked in the industry on a top event yard. Pippa enjoys nothing more than immersing herself in the sport at the highest level, reporting from the five-stars and international championships, including the Olympics.