The Langley, BC, native won the class aboard Billy Cevelle only five months after sustaining life-threatening injuries in a car accident involving a moose. Gary, who hails from London, England, but was raised in Red Deer, Alberta, got his first pony at the age of five. He worked his way through Pony Club and eventually decided to focus on riding competitively, graduating from the junior ranks by winning the 1989 CET Medal Finals under the tutelage of Chris Brand.
At 21, he moved west to train with Brent and Laura Balisky at Thunderbird Show Stables in Langley, BC, where he worked for three years before branching out on his own. He now operates out of Ray and Judy Wise’s Fairway Farms, conveniently located across the street from Thunderbird Show Park.
For Gary, who has two healthy children and a happy marriage of 16 years, the accident that took place on April 20th, 2012, brought new meaning to the word “gratitude.” He spent five days in ICU with a skull fracture, two brain bleeds, and 70 stitches; doctors were not optimistic about his prognosis. During recovery, “I basically spent a month in a dark cave,” he recalls. “No phone, no email, no stimulation of any kind. I did a lot of what we called “stroller therapy,” as we had a two-month-old baby at the time. There was a lot of walking in the early months; it was all I could handle, mentally.” After six weeks, he began to gradually increase his mental and physical workload, backing off when he felt pushed.