Jacqueline Brooks and her longtime partner, Gran Gesto, have become one of the most successful Canadian dressage partnerships of the past five years, both in Canada and internationally. When Jacquie was invited to participate in the 2011 World Dressage Masters Palm Beach CDI5*, it represented perhaps the only top international milestone Gran Gesto had not yet achieved in his career. “He had made the Pan Am team, the WEG team, the Olympic team, the World Cup and now the five-star,” said Jacquie during the Masters. “His bucket list is complete.”

This past summer, Jacquie and the 16-year-old Oldenburg gelding won the grand prix freestyle at all three Canadian CDIs they attended. As of December 2011, Gran Gesto was the top-ranked Canadian horse on the FEI World Individual Dressage Rankings list.

It has been an incredible ride for Jacquie and Gran Gesto; and while that partnership is still going strong, Jacquie has a new star in her stable named D-Niro, a horse with which she hopes to make a second Olympic dream come true.

THE JOURNEY

After Jacquie completed her degree at the University of Western Ontario, she travelled to Havana, Cuba, as Ashley Holzer’s groom at the 1991 Pan Am Games. That experience became a driving force in Jacquie’s riding career; a year later, she purchased a three-year-old gelding named Finnegan in Germany and proceeded to train him to the grand prix level. Finnegan became a crowd favourite at the Royal Winter Fair, and Jacquie discovered a love of the freestyle and of performing for appreciative audiences.

While she was logging her first grand prix miles with Finnegan, Jacquie was moving Gran Gesto quickly up the training ladder. He was just eight when he was on Canada’s silver medal Pan Am Games team in 2003, and by the time he was nine, was competing at grand prix. 2007 was a particularly successful year for the pair, who received a wild card to compete for the first time at the World Cup Dressage Finals. At the Royal that November, they were crowned Canadian Grand Prix Freestyle champions.

When Jacquie and Gran Gesto were named to the 2008 Canadian Olympic Team, she was already achieving top results with another young talent, the Hanoverian gelding Balmoral. Like Gran Gesto, Balmoral had come to Jacquie as a five-year-old; he quickly proved himself, first with wins in the FEI five- and six-year-old divisions at Devon, and subsequently at prix St. Georges and intermediaire I. By the time he was ten, Balmoral was competing at the grand prix level.

The sale of Balmoral in 2010 made it possible for Jacquie to purchase D-Niro, a 12-year-old Swedish Warmblood gelding by D-Day, in the spring of 2011. D-Niro and Jacquie had already formed a strong partnership by September, when they won their first CDI class: the Grand Prix Special at Devon. “It was quite exciting,” says Jacquie of her success at Devon. “I had a timeline of hoping to have developed a partnership by the beginning of Florida, so to have done that by the end of September has really boosted my confidence.”

THE TRAVELMATES

Besides her horses, Jacquie’s journey from groom to team rider has been made possible by significant contributions from some very special supporters. “I’m so thankful to my parents, Mary and Eric, and to Anne and John Welch, who have been putting me on horses for 20 years.” Through ownership of Gran Gesto, Balmoral and now D-Niro, the Brooks and Welch families’ generosity and unflagging support are deeply appreciated by Jacquie, now more than ever. Because of his age, Gran Gesto is no longer eligible to qualify for the funding that Jacquie would receive as a carded athlete. D-Niro is not yet eligible, since he does not yet have enough CDI scores to be a listed horse. “But the stars have lined up this year,” says Jacquie. “In spite of the loss of carding and funding support, I have a fantastic horse, sponsor and parents.”

Being able to count on Ashley Holzer as her personal coach has been beneficial on many levels, not least of which is the fact that whenever Jacquie has been on a team, Ashley has been right there at her side. “I’m so thankful to Ashley. She doesn’t coach many people, she has no time to add extra work on, but she has always welcomed me, and she believes so much in me.”

Jacquie is also looking forward to spending the Florida season at Kim Boyer’s Hampton Green Farm, which is conveniently located next door to Holzer’s barn. Jacquie and her clients will be based at Hampton Green through the winter season. “I will have my own ring to train my clients, and the barn is side-by-side with Ashley’s, where I can train daily. It’s a perfect situation. I have to thank Kim, who has made it possible for me to be there and also to run my business.”

DESTINATION LONDON

When fellow Canadian Chris Von Martels contacted Jacquie early in 2011 to say he had a horse in his sales barn that he thought would be worth her consideration, she tried him twice before concluding that he was going to be a potential horse for the next Olympics. “Chris has really done a good job matching horses to riders in his sales business,” she says. With her sponsors on board for the purchase, Jacquie laid out a simple but ambitious set of goals for D-Niro. Rather than showing him at the prix St. Georges level, she spent the winter in Florida training him in the grand prix movements. “I haven’t had a stableful of already-trained grand prix horses, so generally I have trained them myself. I’ve learned a tremendous amount doing it that way. Some of D-Niro’s training issues were routes I’d already taken. I could accelerate the training, because it wasn’t uncharted territory.”

Jacquie’s focus produced the competition results she was looking for over the summer, which culminated with the win at Devon. “Now that I feel confident in D-Niro’s ability, the challenge for London now is the time factor. He is coming from behind in terms of getting scores and experience in the ring. I will start out showing as much as I can to get qualifying scores early and to see how he copes.”

As for Gran Gesto, he will continue to compete until he lets Jacquie know he’s had enough. “Mentally, I don’t think there is another horse like Gran Gesto,” says Jacquie. “He’s so solid mentally and such a competitor. The minute I go down centreline and he doesn’t feel like he wants to do it, he won’t ever have to do it again.”