Brett Parbery had come to an unexpected hiatus in his life – not only was he restricted in his activities by the Covid shutdowns, he broke a leg in a fall and was confined to home. A good friend gave him some sound advice and brought his future into focus.
Brett Parbery is back at home with wife Melinda and their son Jake on their beautiful property at Penrose in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales. Brett recently returned from the National Dressage Championships at Boneo Park where he took out the Australian Advanced Championship on Iresias L, a nine-year-old stallion aka ‘Johnny’ and owned by Sarah Hanslow. Brett’s plans for Iresias are the exception to his new lifestyle, where he is happily invested in growing his innovative training program and spending more time with his family.
Here, Brett reveals how this new lease on life came about and where he hopes it will lead.
EQ LIFE: The last two years have changed everybody’s lives. How has your life and business changed?
BRETT: In October 2019 I had an accident where I came off a young horse and broke my leg. So I came into the Covid period already on the lounge! We also had some bushfires in our area at the time as well. We came into Covid already disrupted from the normal life, and for me at that time normal life was all around Willinga Park.
I had always promised my wife, Mel, that when Jake turned 10 I would make a really concerted effort to be around more. With my job I was always away from home, so I said when Jake turns 10 I will make sure that I make all the appropriate adjustments to be there. Part of that was having to resign from the Willinga Park position and turn around and concentrate more on rebuilding what we had already built in the past. My focus turned to that, and I suppose Covid came at an opportune time – the world stopped and it gave me a chance to do all of my planning, get all the things in place that I needed for when the world kicked off again.
It was a positive thing for us because it just gave us that breathing space and time to do what we wanted to do. The things that I had to do was first rejig the way my income was being earned. Another was to push harder in developing our education program, ‘Performance Riders by Brett Parbery’. Another was to build the stable in quality horses and in ownership structures that enabled us to be involved in the equity of the horses. At times it has been hard, but we’re through it now and all the hard work has produced this really strong, robust business model. I think the two years during Covid was time well spent.
EQ LIFE: A close friend of yours on hearing about you breaking your leg, asked you to identify five things that you were going to change. What were they?
BRETT: I am very, very fortunate that I grew up with a person who is still one of my dearest and closest friends today. His name is Greg Leys, and he’s a farrier in Tamworth. When he found out that I had been injured, he was one of the first people to call me. And he said to me, “Right, this is what you’re going to do. You’re not going to sit around waiting for yourself to get healthy. You are going to start planning out how you come back from this and what you do”. It was just such a great piece of advice – that’s what great people do for you, they motivate you. So he said, “I want you to write down five things that you’re going to do. I’m going to call you back in three days and see how they’re coming along.”
One of the first things was to actually leave Willinga Park – not in a bad way – I felt like I had achieved what I wanted to achieve there. I really felt like we had done what needed to be done with Terry and for Terry (Snow). And I had learnt so much from Terry, I was very, very thankful that I was able to spend those years with him as he taught me so much. But unfortunately, it was time to leave that arrangement at Willinga Park.
FAMILY FIRST
So, the second thing was that I was able to come back home and put my family first; being around more for Jake and also get back to Mel and I working side by side.
The next was investing in my own life; basically, looking at my nutrition, my appreciation for the simple things, my approach to new challenges, investing in my own growth and the overall way I was spending my time. Was I running around on the “rat wheel” or was I actually spending quality time planning and slowing down and being with friends and family and not running around for other people?
The fourth thing was to diversify the way I spend my time. I’ve gone back into property – so I’m 50% horse person, 50% property person, and that’s been a really big thing and I’m really glad I did that.
The last thing was to look at our horse business and really make sure it is structured the right way. You know, riding for lots of people, riding lots of horses for lots of people isn’t the best model. Now I ride only really for myself. I have ownership structures with other people, where I own part of all of the horses that I ride – except for Johnny – and I’m in those ownership groups with people I really enjoy being with and really enjoy them as professionals in what they do. It means all the work I do on the horse; I grow equity in the horse and I have the control of all of the decision making, which is great.
Another thing was to just really grow the Parbery Program, which we have renamed ‘Performance Riders by Brett Parbery’.
EQ LIFE: How is that program coming along?
BRETT: Our Performance Rider program is growing month on month, it’s one of those things that is organically growing. We now have about 300 Gold Members and we’ve put about 1,400 people through the Breakthrough Program over the last three years. It is really gaining industry respect and we have developed some strong alliances with really good professionals both in and out of the industry.
There are two sides to our Program: there is Dressage Breakthrough – a seven-module/seven-week course which lays out in a very organised and systematic way our approach to dressage, our training system, how we train and prepare for competitions and how we learn from competitions. In this program I try to make riders aware that they are responsible for their own training system and their own future success. I shine a light on my system and take everyone through the way I approach things. It opens up their mind as to how to engage in the sport of dressage where they have more control over the outcomes. Whether they use my system or develop their own, I don’t really mind. I actually would prefer if the riders develop their own system because then it is theirs and they are more likely to remember it during crucial moments in training and competing.
OWNING YOUR OWN SYSTEM
Training horses is all about being consistent, systematic, humble and intelligent. Making sure we are the more intelligent person, the more intelligent creature in the arrangement. And getting the riders to think about everything they do. It allows them to be stimulated and to learn the way I go about it – and they might adopt 80% of it and then adopt 20% for themselves. The real power to each person is that it comes from them owning their own system of training, management and competing, and all of the facets around this. That’s the Breakthrough Program, which has in the past been run as live programs two times per year (January and July), and is now also available for year-round enrolment as a self-guided study option.
The second offering is our Gold Performance Program. This is my pet project where we are continually developing what we think will be the most comprehensive high-performance program in the world, open to anyone who wants to be involved. I am of the view that high performance is an attitude, not always confined just to who is winning. Over my time I have seen many winners with poor attitudes, who are now no longer in the sport. We really focus on the concept of development over time – it’s a long game that is tested over time and over multiple horses.
We have a lot of contributors that visit and speak with our Gold Members. For example, elite sports/performance psychologist Jonah Oliver and mindset coach Tanya Mitton contribute on mindset. We have had guest coaches Gareth Hughes, Tristan Tucker, Simone Pearce, Mary Hanna, Lyndal Oatley, Andrew McLean, to name just a few, and we would like to do more with all of them. Our resident contributors include Kristi Wysocki (FEI judge based in the US) for our test riding, Fiona Hargraves (sports science) for all things rider-athlete related, and Emma Weinert (in-house trainer/mentor), Caroline Foote (equine nutrition) and of course my wife, Mel, and Nat Foxon who is the curator of the overall program.
We run it like a high-performance program and push people hard to stimulate them, to grow. It’s all about getting them to grow and develop, not only as riders but in general life. I push people hard to try and find new boundaries and I try to bring the best out in themselves. We bring in the best experts and coaches in the world. You never know what will trigger someone to make a change in their life for the better. Our guest speakers are all hand-picked because I know their stories and I know our membership will get something from them. We’re always trying to add new and better ways for people to measure themselves, become smarter and more intelligent. That is the one thing you can change – yourself – how you approach it… the more intelligent way you approach it, the way you train your horse. All these things are 100% in your control.
It takes a while, but people start to realise it is all them. The horse is only the recipient of the better human. That’s what we are all about, growing and developing. It is so satisfying to be in a position to be able to offer this to people. Where it’s growing at the moment, which we are so thrilled about, is I am getting a lot of other professionals coming up to me and telling me that they love the concept. They’re not necessarily in the program but they congratulate me on coming up with it, because a lot of their students might be in the program and they’re finding that coaching people that are in the program makes their job easier because that person is more accountable. We give people the information and we make them accountable for everything they do.
POSITIVE FEEDBACK
It’s really encouraging to have other professionals coming up to me and saying, ‘Well done, congratulations, thanks for doing it, we’re loving the fact our people are doing it’. That for me is what I wanted, I wanted professionals to realise it wasn’t a threat; it’s not me going out there and saying ‘I’m the bearer of all knowledge and everyone should come to me’. That’s not what it’s about; it’s about trying to get horses a better life in dressage by creating smarter humans. That’s the goal and, let’s say, the motivation of the program.
EQ LIFE: What horses do you have in your stables now and what are some of your aims?
BRETT: The stable is called Parbery Performance Horses and it is for us, for me and Mel and Jake to enjoy. Basically, I have the horse I won the Australian Championship with at Boneo Park, a horse called Iresias L, and he’s owned by Sarah Hanslow. He’s the only client horse that we have in the stable, the rest are owned by us. Johnny is a beautiful stallion, nine years old by Johnson, and for me that’s the horse I want to invest plans in trying to take to Grand Prix. I’m doing all the things that I believe are in his best interests to go to Grand Prix – and that includes not competing that much – that does not contribute to a Grand Prix horse.
Then I’ve got younger horses. I have a five-year-old (Cooramin Despacito) which is by De Niro, bred by Heather Cooramin at Cooramin stud in Wagga; he’s owned by Mel and I, and Rob Topfer and Becky Sparks. We own him together and he’s a lovely horse, I’ll compete him this year a little bit, not much. He’ll go to the main shows in the five-year-old classes. He’s also a horse where over-competing is not necessary.
I have a horse called WP Storm Chaser, which is a horse owned by Michael and Susie Clayton. He’s by Sezuan and out of a lovely mare that we trained for a while called Daytona Joy. Riley Alexander – who is based with us – is actually riding him at the moment, he’s doing all the hard yards.
And another one with us is Hollands Bend Formidable, a five-year-old that we own with Bill and Tonia Wheeler. He is a beautiful horse by For Romance and bred by Jane and Peter Bartram of Hollands Bend. We have one with a very good friend Anwen Lovett, called Brierley Valentine – a four-year-old by Vitalis and out of a mare called Daisy in Paris, who we also had in training for a while. He will be competing this year in the four-year-old classes.
We use 4CYTETM Epiitalis Forte Gel religiously as part of the management program of our team of dressage horses. Dressage at the top level is all about having sound, fit, happy and healthy horses. Using 4CYTETM Epiitalis Forte Gel gives us the confidence that we are providing optimum management in regards to joint health, in a cost effective, non-swabbable way.
EQ LIFE: Horses are very much a family affair for you now, especially with Jake and his successes. Is he allowed to ride any of your horses? Do you all go out competing together?
BRETT: Yeah, he does, he’s now 12 and he is showing some talent. He’s very, very keen, absolutely loves horses and animals and seems to have a good mind for it. At the moment he is into dressage but we will see if that changes over time. It’s easier for us if he sticks with dressage. He has a lovely horse that he’s been riding called Harmony, who has been kindly leased to us, but we are looking for another horse for him. She is for sale and he’s competing her until she sells.
He hops on Johnny and warms him up for me and might cool him down occasionally. He has also ridden a couple of times a beautiful Friesian stallion that Riley has in training called Tjibbe. We’re working on some horses for him to compete at the Interschools and shows next year, but up to now we keep forgetting to enter him. Mum and Dad will need to improve on that front! Jake certainly has some talent, but talent alone, as we know, is not enough; you’ve got to have work ethic and intelligence to go with it. Mel and I certainly don’t do the work for him. He has to do it himself and learn to love the work, not just the fun parts. When he is old enough, we will start farming him out to some of the other top stables, so he can learn from other top professionals.
It’s a lot of fun putting our own horses on the truck and going out to compete as a family. That’s what I grew up with in campdrafting and polocrosse, so I’m grateful that we are able to do the same now in dressage. EQ
On January 19, Brett Parbery is running a ‘2023 Success Summit’. In this FREE online event you’ll learn how Brett, Simone Pearce and the whole 2023 Performance Riders training, coaching and mentoring team are approaching success this year, and how you can do it too! Save your seat here.
This article was written in conjunction with 4CYTE. Click here to learn more about joint health care.
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Lucinda Green’s Joint Venture – Equestrian Life, September 2021
