You Only Live Once (6 page)

CHAPTER EIGHT

GROWING APART

Back in 2008 I felt as if all I ever did was work and then come home and there was never any down time, never any way I could switch off. I’d started up my KP Equestrian range and that was going well so I decided that I wanted to ride more and challenge myself by learning dressage. It seemed the obvious choice. I have always loved riding. Horses are my escape and my passion. I’d been riding since I was seven so it wasn’t as if it was this new thing that just came out of the blue. I already owned several horses, two of which were on loan to friends, but I was hardly riding at all, apart from the odd hack. And I did want to push myself. I wanted a fresh challenge. Learning jumping didn’t appeal to me as I thought it looked too dangerous, but I liked the look of dressage. It’s a highly specialised sport where the rider has to make the horse perform a number of precision moves by using their hands, legs, and the position of their body. It is occasionally called horse ballet. It looks beautiful and elegant but it is really hard!

Once I’ve decided what I want to do, I don’t hang about. So next I had to get a dressage horse. The horses I already had were not trained in dressage. So I flicked through
Horse and Hound
and saw what looked like the ideal one for me advertised. Not only did it sound impressive but it also happened to be black and that is my all-time favourite colour in a horse. The only problem was that it was in Glasgow and my hectic schedule meant that I didn’t have time to fly up and see it. So I called the owner and said, ‘You’re going to think I’m mad but I want your horse and I can’t come and see it, so can I send a vet round to give him his five-stage vetting? [That’s like a horse MOT.] And then I can decide whether to buy it or not.’ The horse passed its inspection and I called the owner again and asked if she would drive it down to me. I transferred the money into her account and was now the proud owner of a horse I’d never seen. Yes, I admit that was impulsive. It was a fifteen-grand impulse buy! People think you need to spend a lot more than that on a dressage horse, but I think that’s crap, because this one, who I called Jordan’s Glamour Girl, went on to teach me a lot.

So the horse arrived, and as soon as I got on her she began rearing. This was not a promising start. The owner said that she didn’t usually do that. Typical, I thought. I’ve gone and bought a dud horse. Why didn’t I see her before I spent the money? But then the owner got on and I saw that the problem was with me, not the horse, because she had her trotting and cantering round the ring and the horse looked stunning. So I tried again but I couldn’t even get her to walk, let alone trot! And when I gave her the signal to walk on she began doing all this fancy footwork. Because the horse was so finely tuned to dressage instructions, I couldn’t ride her as I would usually; I had to learn the dressage moves first.

But instead of learning dressage then, I was so busy with work that I ended up loaning Jordan’s Glamour Girl to one of my best friends, as she then was, Michelle Baker, another keen rider. And I paid for the horse’s upkeep. I knew Michelle from my glamour modelling days when she was still Michelle Clack. I couldn’t keep Jordan’s Glamour Girl at my house as my stables weren’t yet ready and such a highly trained horse needed to be exercised regularly otherwise her fitness would suffer.

Several months later I realised I was back to square one with my riding ambitions. I was the owner of yet another horse and yet again someone else was riding it! I really would have to find a dressage instructor. Dressage is not something you can teach yourself. So while we were busy promoting
Pushed to the Limit
, I asked Diana to help find me one in my area.

Diana did her research and found Andrew Gould. He is one of the leading dressage riders in the country as well as being a dressage instructor and trainer. He also happens to be young and good-looking, and when Diana showed me the information on him and I saw pictures of him, we both said, ‘Oh, Pete’s not going to like this.’ At that time Pete seemed quite down. He had put on weight and wasn’t working out. I think it was also tied up with how frustrated he felt about not having an album deal and that while I was busy working on so many different projects; all he really had was the reality show. It didn’t matter to me that he had put on weight. I loved him however he looked, and always thought he looked good. The fact remains, I didn’t choose Andrew as my instructor because of his looks – I couldn’t have cared less what he looked like. He could have looked like Shrek for all the difference it made to me. I just wanted to learn dressage!

Diana had given me the telephone number of his stables and I called up and spoke to Andrew’s wife Polly about the possibility of learning dressage with Andrew and keeping my horse at their stables. As we chatted we got on really well. I thought, ‘Excellent. Maybe we could be friends with this couple. It would be so good to know another young couple with children, especially one that shares my love of riding.’

When I first went to Priory Dressage – Polly and Andrew’s training livery stables – it was a Saturday sometime in March 2008 and the place was buzzing with riders and horses. I watched at the outdoor school and was blown away by seeing all the absolutely stunning horses and fantastic riders. I thought, ‘I would love to be able to ride like that. But, bloody hell, there’s no way I’m riding in public yet because I can’t even get my horse to trot!’ Andrew and Polly seemed like such a nice couple, both down-to-earth, both really friendly. I moved Jordan’s Glamour Girl to their stables so that Andrew could train her up and I started having lessons.

At first I was nervous. I am a very good rider but dressage is such a specialised sport that getting on a finely trained dressage horse made me feel like a novice. But it didn’t take long for me pick it up. Very soon I was connecting with my horse and learning how to get her to make the dressage moves. I got a real buzz from learning and started having lessons every day first thing in the morning, before any of my work commitments.

I decided I wanted to enter some dressage shows and compete. I always need a goal to work towards. Taking up dressage gave me such a good feeling, and I loved being around the horses and the stables. People who love riding will totally understand where I’m coming from – though I guess it’s like any hobby which you enjoy. For me, going to the stables was about switching off; it was somewhere I wasn’t going to be filmed or photographed. It was my escape and riding made me feel so happy. At last I was starting to feel that I did have some space away from work.

At first Pete seemed fine about me riding so much. After all, he was spending practically every day in the studio working on his music – something which I fully supported, as I knew how important his music was to him and how much he longed to bring out another album. And he knew how much I had always loved horses and riding. When he first met me, for instance, I’d just bought a house in a small village in the Sussex countryside and had stables built there for my horses. When we later moved to Ockley, in Surrey, the main reason I bought that house was because it had stables, school and a field for my horses. But then Pete met Andrew and everything changed. He had met Polly and Andrew briefly when they both came round to the house once before we went off to a horse show, and even in that brief meeting, which was filmed for our reality series, I got a bad vibe from Pete, but thought maybe I was imagining it.

I admit we were both jealous in our marriage. When we first got together we were so into each other, we were in each other’s pocket 24/7 and that was how we both wanted it to be. And so a few years down the line when our relationship had grown more comfortable, as all relationships do after a time, when one of us wanted to do something different, without the other person involved, it would feel odd. The fact is that riding was something I had always done, it wasn’t something new. But jealousy is a poison, a cancer, and once it starts growing out of control, it can destroy everything . . .

* * *

I had been learning dressage for nearly three months and to give myself a challenge, had entered a competition at Hickstead on 11 June. It was my first one and it felt like a big deal for me, especially given that I could hardly ride Jordan’s Glamour Girl when I first got her and now we were working so well together. It was made more nerve-racking for me because it was being filmed for our reality show and the paps turned up in force to photograph me as well, so I felt under added pressure. As I got ready to go on I anxiously scanned the stand, looking for Pete. My mum, brother, sister and a couple of my friends had come to support me and Pete had promised to come along as well, but there was no sign of him. I felt disappointed that he wasn’t there. It might have been only a small competition, but it was my first and so was particularly important to me. In the end he turned up after I’d finished competing because he’d got lost on the way. I couldn’t help thinking that everyone else who was close to me had managed to arrive on time.

I came sixth out of a class of twenty-three in the competition, which I didn’t feel was at all bad given that I was so new to the sport. Afterwards the show director of Dressage at Hickstead, Dane Rawlins, told
Horse and Hound
that he was impressed by my performance, commenting: ‘She did a bloody good job. She didn’t hype it. She got a good round of applause. She just wanted to do it properly. Everyone was quietly impressed. She was very pleasant and friendly to everyone and has set her sights firmly on improving. She got the lines right and got to grips with it well. She’s good news for the sport, as everyone likes a touch of glamour.’ I was thrilled to receive such positive feedback. As Dane Rawlins had trained riders to Olympic level, he would know a good rider when he saw one.

Now I was riding again I didn’t feel I needed to go out clubbing for a release. When I was with the horses, I loved it so much that it took my mind off everything else and gave me the freedom I craved. But the thing about riding is that it is all-consuming – being around horses, riding itself, being with other riders who understand your passion for horses, being out in the fresh air all day – it takes up a lot of time. I could go off riding feeling stressed or down, but by the time I’d ridden for a few hours all that stress and tension would have vanished. I would feel fantastic, exhilarated. Anyone out there who is interested in horses will know that you can happily spend all day at stables just because you love being with horses and everything that goes with them. Whenever my fame comes to an end, as it is bound to one day, my dream is to have a house where I can have stables and fields and then I will spend all day outside with the horses, along with my kids. That would be my idea of heaven.

Just as there are football widows there’s the phenomenon of horse widowers – men who find that their wives and partners get so involved with their passion for riding that they spend hours away from home, getting up early when usually nothing except work will get them out of bed, and riding all weekend. I so wanted Pete to understand my passion for riding and to share it, but I’m afraid we were getting on so badly that this wasn’t the case.

I would say, ‘Why don’t you come along and watch me ride?’ I was desperate to involve him.

‘You don’t really want me to,’ would be his reply.

‘I’ve just said you could!’ I’d exclaim.

And he would come back with, ‘So why are you saying it with an attitude?’

I felt I could not win. Whatever I said was wrong. We had always had a passionate relationship where we bickered and argued with each other as you can see on our reality shows. That’s just the way we were. But our arguments were getting worse, more destructive, and really threatening our marriage.

Meanwhile riding was playing an important part in my life. I was making such good progress with Jordan’s Glamour Girl that I decided I wanted a better horse. She was great but she was never going to make it to Grand Prix (the highest) level in dressage because she had a problem with her suspensory ligaments. Pete had bought me a horse for my thirtieth birthday, a gorgeous chestnut called Dan. He was really young so would be ideal for training. I kept him at Andrew’s stables, but after only a few weeks one of his riders had a fall from Dan after he bolted and Andrew said he didn’t think the horse would be suitable for me. He suggested I sent him to a stables in Holland to be trained and later sold. That left me itching to get another horse.

There was a big horse sale coming up in July in Holland and I decided to go there with Andrew and Polly and their other clients to see if I could buy one. I was also taking Diana, Michelle Clack, my mum, dad, my sister, Gary, Phil and Jamela. I asked Pete to come as well but he had plans to go to Cyprus. The trip was hardly a big secret; it had been in my schedule for ages. However, Pete and I were getting on so badly by then it was really starting to get to me. All I wanted was to pursue my hobby and buy some decent horses. I was getting such a good buzz from riding. Pete had his studio at home; that was his thing. I wanted something for myself. Over in Holland I bought a horse and even named him Andre.

I thought about buying Pete a horse too and asked him if he would have riding lessons so that he could share my passion. I wanted the whole family to ride; Harvey has riding lessons at his school and loves it, Junior has riding lessons and loves it too, especially since I’ve bought him a pony of his own, and I want Princess to get into riding as well. Then we can all go out on hacks together and I can take them to shows. I had this dream of us all going off to shows in my huge pink horse box and staying in it, imagining some really fun family times. But that never happened when I was with Pete.

I kept trying to get Pete to see what a great couple Polly and Andrew were, and how our two families could be friends. But he just wasn’t having it, and if ever he did see them I would sense a bad atmosphere and probably act differently because I was so tense. Polly and Andrew are an outgoing couple who have always socialised with their clients. Whenever they asked Pete and me over or out anywhere, I always felt I had to make excuses. Pretty soon they cottoned on that Pete seemed to have had a problem with them and commented, ‘Pete doesn’t like us, does he?’