Riders (1985)

Riders is a 1985 novel written by the English author Jilly Cooper. It is the first of a series of bonkbusters known as the Rutshire Chronicles, which are set in the fictional English county of Rutshire. The story focuses on the lives of a group of top show jumping stars and follows the ups and downs of both their personal and professional lives. The plot focuses on the lives of rival equestrians Rupert Campbell-Black and Jake Lovell, who first met at boarding school and subsequently compete against each other in the show-jumping ring. Their wives also feature heavily in the book: Lovell marries a wealthy debutante, Tory Maxwell, for her money; Campbell-Black marries an American book editor, Helen Macaulay. Both are unfaithful to their wives, with Lovell having an affair with Macaulay. The book's climax is set at the Los Angeles Olympics, where the British team win a gold medal, despite riding one man down and one man injured.

Cooper lost her first draft of the novel circa 1970, after she accidentally left it on a bus in London. She later commented that she felt the book was better as a result, since the characters had much longer to mature. The book was reviewed positively upon publication with writer Anne de Courcy describing the work as progression in terms of Cooper's fiction writing, shifting gear from her previous romantic novels such as Bella.

The novel sold over 1 million copies and was cited by former prime minister Rishi Sunak as one of his favourite books. After Cooper's death in 2025, her publisher Ian Scott-Kerr described how Riders had "changed the course of popular fiction forever".

The novel was adapted in 1993 into a television film for Anglia Television and broadcast on the ITV Network. Riders was directed by Gabrielle Beaumont and starred Marcus Gilbert. The book has influenced writers such as Samantha Ellis, who featured in her book on heroines, and has also influenced British fashion in the 2000s. A revised cover for the 30th-anniversary edition was deemed controversial as it moved the man's hand away from the crotch towards the hip of the featured bottom. Several analyses were given in the press for why this may have been done, including a suggestion that the cover change was related to "heightened sensitivity" to various sexual abuse scandals in the United Kingdom.

The novel is a foundation text of the bonkbuster genre and sits alongside Lace by Shirley Conran, Hollywood Wives by Jackie Collins and Scruples by Judith Krantz as such. Analysis has most often focussed on depictions of sex in the novel, citing themes of coercion, frigidity and humour. Other research has centred the novel's place in the pony book genre, albeit with an intended adult audience.

Synopsis

Set against the backdrop of the English Cotswolds countryside, Riders follows the fortunes of a group of show jumping stars. The novel centres on a rivalry between two men, Jake Lovell and Rupert Campbell-Black, who were at school together and subsequently compete against each other in the 1970s. Their animosity stemmed from Campbell-Black bullying Lovell at boarding school, which was motivated by anti-gypsy sentiment. Whilst Campbell-Black was rich with an inherited fortune, Lovell was poor and his mother died by suicide when he was young. In order to have enough money to set up his own show-jumping yard, Lovell married a debutante named Tory Maxwell to whom he was not always faithful.

Campbell-Black was a renowned womaniser, who had many lovers, before, during, and after his marriage to an American woman called Helen Macaulay. They met when Macaulay was acting as a hunt saboteur. Nevertheless, they married after a short courtship, but Campbell-Black was never faithful to her, having multiple affairs and at least one illegitimate child.

Family life aside, the drama is in the show jumping ring as Lovell and Campbell-Black compete against each at competitions across Europe. Their animosity grows, and they both take over one another's horses in a range of circumstances. Lovell, for example, rescues a horse called Macaulay from quarries in the Middle East where Campbell-Black had sold him, after beating the horse too hard. In return, Campbell-Black buys a horse called Rockstar that was being trained by Lovell, but owned by his parents-in-law, who sold him on.

Wider sub-plots involved Campbell-Black's best friend Billy Lloyd-Foxe, who is married to a journalist called Janey. When the two separate he starts a relationship with Tory's younger sister Fenella Maxwell, who Jake trained in show jumping.

The novel culminates at the Los Angeles Olympics, where Lovell elopes with Helen, Campbell-Black's wife after they have an affair. Campbell-Black dislocates his shoulder, so has to ride one-handed, along with Fenella and one other rider; the whole team a man down due to Lovell's departure. They win gold.

Background

As a child Cooper spent a significant amount of time around horses, and even at that time had wanted to write a novel that featured them. Cooper recalled how she lost her first draft of the novel circa 1970, after she accidentally left it on a bus in London. The draft was never found, despite a public appeal. Cooper spent much of the 1970s trying to re-write the novel, but living in London was not conducive to describing the country life she wanted to portray. In 1982 she moved into a former monastery in Gloucestershire and there got inspiration to finish the novel that became Riders, which was published in 1985.

Cover

When first published in 1985, the book's cover somewhat controversially depicted "a man's hand resting intimately on the seat of a woman's jodhpurs". Bonkbusters commonly have "scandalous covers", but the 30th-anniversary edition moved the male hand from where it was firmly gripping the female rider's bottom to a much higher position nearer to her hip, amidst fan backlash.