That and his inability to ride basic dressage movements such as shoulder in, as well as the fact that he doesn’t realize he’s not doing what he thinks he is doing.
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I think he would be paralyzed with fear if someone took him up on his “free” clinic offer and wouldn’t even show up if he agreed to the clnic.
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That video of him (allegedly) teaching a young woman how to ride a shoulder-in, and then Nick hopping on and believing he’s demonstrating a shoulder-in, was quite revealing. He can’t see that his student is not achieving the goal. And then when he gets on the horse, he cannot feel that he, himself, is not achieving the goal, either. Fascinating.
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He also has the illusion that you just get on and do these movements, without any preparation, no introductory or intermediary steps to setting the horse up for success.
The stepped approach to Dressage has not dawned on, or been shared with him, after all these decades. 
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For those who haven’t read the book, as mentioned earlier there is a story in it about 15 year-old Nick being tackled by an armed security guard at Devon after spending too much time trying to get close to a GP horse named Talent. In the book, he leaves the site upset that Talent’s rider looked on without trying to save him, and he seemed to harbor some ill-will towards her as a result.
In contrast, here is another version of the story, which ends much less dramatically when not told in the context of a dramatic tell-all book.
There’s just no consistency to any of his stories.
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So he thinks an FEI groom is a “jerk” for not letting some random kid touch a horse and take pictures right before a CDI class? Right…the groom is the jerk in this scenario…
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Well, the jerk has to be someone other than him.
What is funny is how different the story is between his blog and his book. One it is a pleasant story the other everyone let Nick down and was mean to him.
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Of all the things that never happened in this book, this is one of the most unhappened.
It is important to keep your stories straight… but when you are trying to portray yourself as a victim, nothing else matters. Being tackled and abused is much more dramatic than seeing Gifted in silhouette - if that even happened as he claimed. Sadly, at this point it is hard to believe a lot of what he says - as his tales have constantly changed and been embellished. He has only himself to blame for that.
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How on earth does he ever expect anyone to believe anything he writes?
In one telling he’s in awe of a spectacular horse, but acts like an entitled brat and whines because the groom was a “jerk” when Nick wanted to further annoy the horse by taking pics.
Then there’s another version where a security guard “physically abuses” him and curses at him, using f-bombs.
And don’t get me started on yet another ridiculously bad cloaking of a famous horse’s name: “Talent” for Gifted. Does he somehow think that if he alters names he can then concoct whatever version of event he prefers because fake names = another story altogether?
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Said of course in Spocks voice
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Sure, Carol invited him…
By the way, if you’re at Devon, you can watch the warmup. It’s not some big secret.
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That part could be legit. An upper-level rider who receives letters from a young dressage fan might want to encourage the teen’s interest in dressage by offering a free pass (assuming the horse show gave her X number of passes and she didn’t need them all). Highly unlikely that it was a pass giving him access to all of the backstage FEI areas, though, so I wouldn’t be surprised if a guard told him he was not authorized to be there, and young Nick thought his pass allowed him to be anywhere and do anything.
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I don’t doubt that there was a security guard. And maybe he said something along the lines of, “Hey kid, go away, you can’t be in here messing with the horses.”
But since that story wouldn’t gain any traction or bolster Nick’s mantle of Victim, it became the story in the book, with the guard essentially assaulting him and using foul language in the process. And when that didn’t cause an uproar, we got the Lawnmower Monologue where it’s now, “child abuse” at a horse show.
It seems to be a common theme with Nick. If at first you don’t get the reaction you crave, try, try again. With more adjectives and drama.
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I just read that chapter of the book… the part where the guard was carrying a firearm and threatened to kill both him and his father with it was particularly eyebrow raising.
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No music? Not the Kur. I was there that night and it was absolute magic. He made the hair stand up on the back of my neck it was unbelievable. They made you want to be better and better at dressage and learn more and more and more.
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I had to turn the volume up and I could hear it around the halfway point and to the end. I think the videographer had the volume turned down (there was a little person making adorable noises) for a time.
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Ugh! You don’t need an invite to be a spectator at Devon.
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Wait, what?
And I quote:
“I’m getting my dad!” I yelled. The guard smirked and opened his red windbreaker jacket to reveal a gun on his waist. “You go ahead. Get your dad. I’ll kill you and I’ll kill him. I’ll take you both out tonight if I have to.”
End scene.
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