The Big Interview ›› stallions there are out there that
nobody will ever find out about.” The flip-side is that he can enjoy Stradivarius properly “With him, there isn’t the pressure you’d feel if you kept a Derby winner in training at four. He could have two more full seasons [of racing].” Assessor and Stradivarius share more than superior staying talent. Both entered Nielsen’s orbit in the hope they would develop into Derby horses. There are few greater advocates of the Derby than the man born 61 years ago to a Danish father and South African mother. Nielsen’s fascination with the sport developed when he was growing up in South Africa. Aged eight or nine, he became captivated by the exploits of Sea Cottage, an iconic horse who won 20 of his 24 starts. In the results section of his local newspaper he noticed that each winner seemed to have three names. This
Stradivarius and Frankie Dettori lift the Gold Cup at Royal Ascot, while below right, dual Group 1 winner Assessor was one of the first horses Bjorn Nielsen owned
“I wonder how many great stallions there are out there that nobody will ever find out about” intrigued him until he learnt that the sire and dam were also listed alongside the winner. His curiosity was aroused. Nielsen’s father was unhappy with the prospect of his children growing up in apartheid South Africa so he relocated his family to Britain. Fortuitously they moved to Epsom, where the teenage Nielsen went to watch the early-morning reconnaissance gallops organised by trainers in the days ahead of the Derby. “It was a magical time,” he says. “I’d go and watch Lester [Piggott] exercise Vincent O’Brien’s horses around the outside of Tattenham Corner and down the home straight. I remember Noel Murless sending Imperial Prince for a spin around Epsom before he finished second in the 1974 Derby. I’d be on my own there at 6.30am; there was no such thing as Breakfast With The Stars.” As the years unfurled Nielsen’s
fascination with the Derby evolved in tandem with his working life. He’d traded gold on his own account in 1979 before he applied for a job on the London Metal Exchange. “That’s when I got my taste for the markets,” he reflects. “I’d made a few bucks; not big money, but I was naive. I didn’t really know what I was talking about but the chairman of an American firm in London gave me a job and 18 months later I was transferred to the States. “That was my opportunity,” he continues. “In London you’d get a pat
on the back if you made your firm £10 million but there they would give you some of the profit as reward. “From there I went onto the floor of the commodity exchange in New York, became a trader and picked it up very quickly. I soon realised it was a game of psychology. You’ve got to understand what everybody else is doing, whether they’re too long or too short, and when the market is going to move.” In 1988 Nielsen joined Connecticutbased Tudor Investment Corporation, where he rose to become Managing Director at one of America’s nascent
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