How did respected equestrian Andrew Gould become entangled inbreak-up of Katie Price - aka Jordan - and Peter Andre's marriage?
Andrew Gould is accustomed to publicity. As one of the country's leading dressage riders with a clutch of medals on his mantelpiece, he is the darling of the equestrian elite and hotly tipped as one of Britain's brightest hopes for the 2012 Olympics. At just 29 and blessed with an athletic frame and classic, chisel-jawed good looks, he has often appeared amid the rarefied pages of Horse and Hound and British Dressage. And with eventing gold medallists Sienna Myson-Davies, Emily Llewellyn and Sharon Hunt on the books of Priory Dressage, the training and livery stables he runs in Sussex, he is, as they say in such circles, well-connected. Even his two blond sons, Oliver, five, and Louis, two, have modelled for The White Company, House of Fraser and Marks & Spencer.
Yet in the past week Andrew Gould has been attracting a decidedly more populist type of publicity. ''I woke up one morning to discover I had become what I think is known as a love rat,'' he splutters. Gazing down at an array of lurid headlines in the red-top titles, Gould is, momentarily, speechless. ''The sleazy night of wild boozing, flashing and snogging,'' screams one. ''Jordan's hunky riding coach hoofs it,'' shouts another. ''And then there's this,'' Gould says, holding up another with distaste. ''Jordan's handsome horsey pal tells Pete [Andre]: 'Meet me man to man … and I'll save your marriage'.'' His wife, Polly, has fared little better: '' 'Keep your hands off my husband,' says the wife of Andrew Gould, Jordan's new love interest,'' says another.
Sitting at the dining table of his Billingshurst home with Polly, Gould rolls his eyes. ''The last thing I want to do is meet Pete face to face,'' Gould says. ''I got asked if I wanted to meet Pete and I replied: 'I don't think Pete would want to talk to me.' Astonishingly, that turned into a headline saying I want to see him, man to man.''
This past week, for the Goulds, has been a classic case of what happens when the worlds of celebrity and normal family life collide. In a nutshell Jordan, or Katie Price as the former Page 3 model now prefers to be known, has dumped her husband of three years, Peter Andre. Mr Andre is a sometime singer who met his wife on the jungle television show, I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here. And Andrew Gould, to his utter astonishment, has been named as The Other Man.
The truth is that their relationship couldn't be more innocent. But what it has been is crucial in Jordan's recent reinvention of herself. She has, of late, ditched the platinum blonde tresses in favour of her natural brown, begun using her real name, and become a dressage rider of some note (while simultaneously launching a lucrative collection of riding wear). And that is where Gould came in. Fourteen months ago her trainer recommended Gould as a coach, since he lived only 20 minutes from her then home. Under his tutleage her career flourished and she has won respect among the equestrian fraternity. ''She is a naturally talented rider,'' Gould says.
Then came last week's brouhaha, when, after the Badminton horse trials, Jordan was pictured in a Bristol night club. She told anyone who would listen (namely Mona Lewis, a competitor in another reality show, The Apprentice) that she was ditching Pete and had fallen for someone else. Within days Jordan and her £30m fortune had fled to the Maldives, claiming she was the one who made all the money. And Peter had moved out of the couple's luxurious home.
Thus, the hunt was on for the other man. Pictures of the ''sleazy night of wild boozing, flashing and snogging'' were scrutinised and the paparazzi decided that, because in one shot Gould had his arm around the model, it had to be him. Never mind that his wife was at the club, too. Gould, it was deemed, was the love rat.
''It was utterly unbelievable,'' Gould groans. ''We had eight car-loads of paparazzi outside the house. Even when I told them that Polly was there that night, they insisted they had looked at the club's CCTV and couldn't see her.'' The stories that followed became increasingly lurid. Jordan, it was claimed, was obsessed with Gould and with the horsey world. She was tired of Andre. She had become fixated on Gould, who was said to be on the point of ditching Polly. Jordan and Gould had spent four hours locked away in her home, discussing their relationship. Polly, it was said, rued the day they had accepted Jordan as a client.
''On and on it went,'' Gould says. ''It just became more and more outrageous. If it hadn't been such a nightmare it would actually have been quite funny because none of it, not a word of it, was true. Yes, Polly and I are friends with Katie. But she is first and foremost our business client. Yes, I've been on trips to Holland with her. But I've taken all my clients when they want to buy new horses. Those four hours I was supposed to be 'holed up in her house'? Polly was there for about three hours. I arrived for the last hour. When I drove out of Katie's gates, a million cameras flashed. When Polly drove out in her car a few seconds later, they all put their cameras down.''
The Goulds, their friends and their family know their marriage is rock solid. But to have been catapulted into such an alien world, then followed, watched and pestered, has left them both feeling bruised. ''The worst thing was the emails,'' says Polly. ''I was getting them from all sorts of people I'd never met, all telling me to kick Andrew out, that there is no smoke without fire. When we decided we were not going to give interviews, comments from us were just made up. We were just friends with Katie and she was and remains a valued client. We had absolutely no idea how out of hand the whole thing would become.''
It could be said that when the Goulds agreed to take on such a high profile client they should have foreseen what could happen. Didn't they ever find Jordan's alcohol-fuelled life, her penchant for salacious dancing and obsession with baring her famous 32DD assets rather embarrassing? ''Not really," Gould says awkwardly. "Well, a little bit. But that's not got anything to do with us. It's not so much that she is outrageous, it's just that the public enhance it. If she was dancing like she does in a club and she was a nobody, no one would take a blind piece of notice. But because we had 35 people swarming around us, it made it look 10 times worse than it was."
Ms Jordan and Mr Andre have made their fortune from living their lives in public. In their latest reality show, filmed during their spell in the United States, cameras followed their every move. And it was a scene in which a furious Jordan told her husband that she earned all the money that fuelled rumours of a split. ''We don't know anything about that,'' the Goulds say. ''Katie doesn't talk about her marriage.''
What has upset the Goulds most has been the manner in which their friends and family have been harassed. ''Someone contacted all my Facebook friends, offering them money for stories about our marriage,'' Polly says. ''Our neighbours and parents were hounded. Everyone who knows us knows our marriage is solid. We'equestrian worldve been together since we were 17.''
''What is worrying," says Gould, "is the effect it could have on my business. It's worrying that potential clients might be put off, that they might think: 'Oh, I don't want to get involved in all that.'
''And then there have been the pictures.'' Snaps of Gould looking manly in his riding breeches have been splashed everywhere. ''I hate being pictured in my breeches, I really hate it,'' he says, blushing. ''Look, I don't deny it. In the , publicity is good. I need it. But please, please, not this sort of stuff. It's been excruciating. I'm just not suited to the celebrity world.''
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