Nicoli Fife with the horse she still rides competitively, Charlton Halo. Photo / Catherine Fry
More than a century after Nicoli Fife’s grandparents first stepped on to their newly purchased farm in 1912, Charlton Stud Sporthorses remains one of New Zealand’s most storied breeding operations – a place where tradition, grit, and generational horsemanship continue to shape the sport horse landscape.
The original farm Fife’s grandparents bought stretched from the main road in Lichfield all the way up to the hills.
They cleared all the scrub, made the lower paddocks into dairy, and ran drystock on the higher ground.
Her parents, Beth and Charlie Fife, met at the inaugural meeting of the Putāruru Pony Club in 1948, and the rest is history.
They took over the main farm in 1950, bringing up four daughters and one son there.
Beth was very much involved in establishing pony clubs and horse trials throughout New Zealand.
“Before they had children, my parents regularly hunted with the Waikato Hunt, and later with the Taupō Hunt.
“They both rode competitively, and in those days, to get to another town to compete, you had to put your horses on the train.”
By the time Fife and her siblings were all competing and hunting, they were able to use the farm’s cattle truck to get to shows.
“In 1967, Charlton Stud Sporthorses was founded by my parents, who were both very knowledgeable horse people and began by breeding ponies.
“They named the stud after the Charlton estate in England, where mum’s mother was born.”
Using their Welsh thoroughbred stallion Super Signal, they were breeding good, all-around, sensible ponies that kids could ride.
Fife was riding at a high level by the late 1970s and was part of the team to contest the World Eventing Championships at Kentucky in 1978, alongside Mark Todd.
“In 1978, we bred Charlton Hahndorf, the only stallion son of the imported Hanoverian stallion Winnebago.
“I trained and then competed with Hahndorf at intermediate-level eventing, Prix St Georges dressage and B grade showjumping.”
The family bred and stood Hahndorf during the 80s and 90s, and many of Hahndorf’s offspring have competed at top levels in all three disciplines, both locally and internationally.
In the 1980s, Fife and her sister Lynley took horses over to Britain and stayed for three years to compete.
Nicoli competed at Burghley but sadly didn’t make it to Badminton.
The stud stood an imported, proven KWPN CI stallion Oldenburg from Holland in 1990, so they had two very good stallions.
“The Hanoverian characteristics bred with New Zealand thoroughbred characteristics made for a good all-around sport horse with the endurance for eventing.
“There were a lot of good thoroughbred lines in New Zealand around the 1980s and 1990s.”
At the stud’s peak, there were 80-odd horses on the farm, and mating was natural.
There were up to 15 horses in work, and Fife trained other people’s horses as well as raising and breaking in the horses she bred.
Fife has her own method for training her foals, starting with handling them as babies, then weaning them at 6 months of age, when more time is spent handling them.
They are then turned out on the hills of the farm to grow and develop.
“I break my horses in myself at 3 years of age, and then begin their riding education.
“Initial emphasis is on dressage, hacking and showjumping, and eventually cross-country training.
“The horses are progressively competed through the levels of all three disciplines along the way.”
In 1992, Fife bred another stallion, Charlton Javelin, by Oldenburg.
He went on to compete successfully in grand prix showjumping, ridden by Catherine Cameron.
Javelin was the sire of many successful sport horses.
When Javelin died in 2011, the era of AI was well established, and Fife was able to follow the international circuits for bloodlines, types and shapes that might complement her mares and then import stallion semen from all over the world.
As the years have passed, Fife still has around 25 horses on her stud, mainly other people’s horses there for grazing, including ex-racehorses from Hong Kong living in retirement bliss.
She breeds one or two foals a year and still rides.
She has been an active Federation Equestre Internationale (FEI) judge since 1998 and has judged at three five-star events – Badminton, Adelaide and Kentucky – during her career.
Fife says she has four pieces of advice for breeding and training successful sports horses.
“I firmly believe in feeding mainly grass, silage, hay and plenty of fibre.
“A good farrier means less injuries and problems, and I’ve been lucky to use John Pulford for 40-odd years.
“A good vet who understands where a horse is at, and lastly, good saddles that fit.”