Jill’s life path with horses was determined after attending a riding camp as a child and would lead to a career training and competing show jumpers. She first stepped into the grand prix ring in 1989; her first big grand prix win came in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1990 where she won the $100,000 World Cup qualifier on Murphy Brown and was second on Canadian Colours. That was a big payday and she brought home $50,000 in prize money.
Jill’s international team debut was both memorable and a bit comical. She was sent to represent Canada in Mexico City in 1991, and was coached at this event by her good friend Mario Deslauriers.
Originally, Gail Greenough was supposed to be on the team for Mexico City, but something happened at the last minute with her horse and she couldn’t go. The CET called Jill and asked her to go, but said that she would have to find her own red jacket because Don Bassin (who has always made the first team jacket for the team riders) didn’t have enough time. She was able to find an old red jacket but had to replace the collar and the flag. One of Ian’s old jackets provided the collar, but it didn’t have a flag so we had to research how big the flag was supposed to be, find one, and then figure out which side to put in on.