Jayden Brown is not just a beautiful and effective rider, he can ride any levels from breakers all the way through to Grand Prix and has an uncanny ability to connect with his mounts in a very empathetic way.

Now training with Carl Hester in the heartland of classic British dressage, he and his Willinga Park horses and crew are ready to step up for the Paris Olympics, should he be selected.

Jayden’s ability to ride anything began on his parents’ property in Queensland where he would go on to riding dressage and starting his own training facility. His calm and diligent way saw him produce many wonderful horses and several to FEI. He qualified San Andreas in the young horse classes at Dressage with the Stars and took him to the World Young Horse Championships in Verden, Germany.

Jenny Gehrke has been a friend, mentor and his coach pretty much throughout his entire riding life, and even though he is in England now and training with Carl Hester, Jenny and Jayden discuss training and plans and approaches to competitions, training methods and life at least once a week.

Along the way Jayden was offered a riding position with Mount St John and moved to England where he worked for 18 months and admits it was a great experience and he learnt that the roads to success are tough and not for the faint-hearted or the non-dedicated! On returning home he continued training and competing from his family’s property in Queensland and saw a vacancy come up at Willinga Park. He applied and was subsequently employed there by Terry and Ginette Snow.

Terry never does anything by halves and appreciated the dedication and work ethic that Jayden showed and went about helping him put a team of horses together and train out of the wonderful Willinga Park. The team became seriously competitive, and it wasn’t long before he was almost unbeatable. WillingaPark Sky Diamond had made it to Grand Prix and WillingaPark Quincy was scoring in the high 70s at Small Tour and was much talked about.

Terry decided it would be a great plan to get the Willinga Team overseas and to England they went!  Six horses, Jayden and two grooms. Training with Carl Hester… and what a major effort and opportunity for Jayden. It was obvious from the outset that Jayden wasn’t there for fun; they were on a mission for themselves and moreover Willinga Park and Terry Snow. Terry’s favourite horse, Sky Diamond, was selected to represent Australia at the FEI World Championships in Herning, Denmark in 2022. What a great result and what a great accolade for Willinga Park.

Since then, all the horses have stepped up and shown great improvement and are turning heads wherever they go. Quincy has made it to Grand Prix and with good scores at big shows of over 70%.  He is only 10 and has all guns blazing towards perhaps a spot on the Aussie team for Paris Olympics.

Jayden’s calm demeanour and organisational skills, combined with a serious talent in riding, have seen him become a truly internationally recognised competitor. The opportunities that Willinga Park have availed him still amaze him and he has to step back occasionally and realise his good fortune. He certainly is conscientious about his position and works tirelessly to achieve as much every day as he can so Willinga Park can be a proud Aussie dressage family.

His love of dressage and Australia is endearing, and Equestrian Life has followed the Willinga dressage trail since its opening. Catching up with Jayden for a chat recently, we find he is still as calm as ever, at least on the outside, and talks honestly and with great logic about competitions, training and the time ahead towards the Paris Olympic Games.

EQ LIFE: Can you tell us a little about where you are living and training, and who you are training with?

JAYDEN: We are based in Gloucestershire, right in the heart of where the top British dressage riders are located. I live in Cheltenham, an old Regency spa town, and Maddy (long-time Willinga Park groom Madeline Leeden) lives in a cottage at none other than Carl Hester’s stable. (Imagine walking past legends Valegro and Utopia every day!) We have the horses stabled at Hillend Farm, which is about 10 minutes from Carl’s and about 10 minutes from top competition venue Hartpury College. Hillend is owned by Jane Gilby, who I already knew from when we were both based in Brisbane. I had visited Hillend once or twice when I worked for Mount St John, so to have the horses based there now has made it very easy to fit into a routine here in Gloucestershire.

EQ LIFE: What horses do you have in work with you? And at what levels are they competing?

JAYDEN: I have the full Willinga Park dressage team with me here. Sky Diamond and Quincy are both competing international Grand Prix; Fangio is entered for his first Grand Prix next month; Spot On, Tito and Miana are all competing at Advanced; and our youngest mare, Noblesse Oblige, has just won her very first competition at Novice level.

EQ LIFE: Tell us about your training program each week? How often you are in the arena, walking out, being coached or competing?

JAYDEN: My training program is fairly consistent. I school the horses in the arena Monday, Tuesday and then usually on a Wednesday they hack out and the older horses do a little in-hand work with me in the afternoons. We school in the arena again on Thursdays and Fridays. I like my horses to have two days off in the paddock every week, so that is usually Saturday/Sunday. I generally train with Carl once a fortnight and lately I’ve been riding Quincy in quite a few of his demos and stable tours. It’s been great exposure for us.

Training with Carl has been an incredible experience and I’m so grateful that he took me on. I think the best thing for me — not just with Quincy but with all of the horses — is that he has never said that we are on the wrong path with any of the horses. It’s always been building on the foundations I’ve put in place and going from there. It’s given me a lot of confidence that what I was doing in Oz with the horses was really on track with the — what I consider to be — the best training system in the world. To have Carl jokingly say things like, “Surely you did not learn to ride pirouettes like that in Australia!” and then tell me he’d give it a 10. That’s pretty cool and makes me feel like I’ve been on a really good training path back home, and now it’s just about getting better at it.

“Quincy’s had three
good shows… each one
better than the last.”

EQ LIFE: Now that it’s getting to the pointy end of the competitions leading into Paris, do you feel there is pressure on you to do well? How do you feel your chances are coming towards selection and how do you keep life in perspective with so many horses in work?

JAYDEN: Absolutely! I work well under pressure, so as we get closer to selection I feel like my horses and my riding are just getting better. I always knew that the first half of the qualifying period would be just getting our foot in the door of Grand Prix. Quincy has only just turned 10, so to push him for big scores at the beginning wouldn’t have been the right way. We decided to get out early this year, with a few shows close together to get him in the swing of things. Quincy’s had three good shows, two in Europe, and each one better than the last. We have Royal Windsor CDI4* next (currently running at time of writing) and he is in great form and more confident with the test than ever. After that we have Hickstead CDI3* and Wellington CDI3*. I had hoped to also do Rotterdam but the changes with the Nations Cup and a few of the bigger shows might mean that doesn’t happen. So, After Windsor and Hickstead, I’ll decide if we need a fourth show before qualification ends.

He has had three 71% scores in the Grand Prix and Special now, competing with really top tier riders like Isabell, Patrik, Carl, Charlotte, Lottie Fry, Becky Moody and the list goes on. The depth of competition at the shows we’ve been going to is so incredibly strong, so it really does feel like we could go to any show in the world and replicate it or even build on what we’ve already done. I think I showed with Sky Diamond at the World Championships that I know how to prepare my horses for a top-level show in a way that lets them produce their best test when it counts. He had a PB there because I held back from shows in qualifying that weren’t right in his preparation and listened to what was right for my horse.

Quincy is a good type of horse to have with where dressage is at the moment; he’s not super flash in front but always presents a really good frame, nice contact and good activity behind. He’s very much the type of horse that moves through his whole body.

I really enjoy working with the horses I have, but after work I like to shift the focus to myself. I train in the gym three or four days a week and also started hot yoga classes about 12 months ago, which I really enjoy. I think it will all depend on how the final selection events go but I am starting to get my head around what the return home will look like now. I’d imagine sometime in August.

EQ LIFE: How do you deal with your mental approach leading into and at competitions?

JAYDEN: I take a very practical approach to the pressure of competition: Do I know what the job/task is? Do I have the skills to do it? And do I have the motivation to make it happen? Tick, tick, tick! Outside of that, it’s keeping my horses happy and healthy. I can’t make them into something they are not, but I can ride and train them well and keep striving to make everything a little bit better.

EQ LIFE: What has been your biggest success and greatest goal since you took the Willinga Park horses to England?

JAYDEN: I think winning an award for harmony and good riding/training with Quincy at the CDI4* in Lier, Belgium. It was a prize selected by the FEI stewards watching the schooling/warm-up ring. Quincy is a horse I have trained since he was three years old with only a very small break in the middle when he was first sold to Willinga Park. He was pretty well known for being on the tricky side as a young horse. He hasn’t quite bucked me off, but he’s certainly tested my riding!

Some of the riders I most admire were competing at Lier, so it was nice to be recognised for good training and riding, not just in the ring but also in the warm-up. One of the stewards in Le Mans, France also asked to film my warm-up to use as an example for the preparation of the stewards who will be in Paris of the type of riding they want to see in the warm-up.

Also, riding Sky Diamond at the World Championships in Herning. He was the first Willinga Park horse on a championship team and our team qualified Australia’s place at Paris. He is slightly overshadowed by Quincy now, but I’m really proud of Sky Diamond for his part in qualifying our team for Paris.

EQ LIFE: Is there anything that you miss training out of your home country and what is the best part?

JAYDEN: I miss living at the beach and the incredible facilities at my disposal at Willinga Park. It’s an incredibly unique and rare type of equestrian facility that I’m really looking forward to basing from again. I also miss having more of the team environment that we created with the dressage team there, travelling to shows together and then enjoying the other disciplines and events that happened at Willinga Park, like the Gold Buckle Campdraft that’s coming up there soon. I miss the diversity of characters and the campdraft is a favourite.

EQ LIFE: What did you focus on over winter to get you ready for this intense time leading towards Paris? 

JAYDEN: Particularly with Quincy, my main hope for the team. It was all about building his strength and finding consistency in the Grand Prix work. He’s still a really young Grand Prix horse, and he is a big solid build. He’s not a finely built, hot type of horse, so it takes a lot of power and strength for him to perform at Grand Prix level and I simply worked every ride at getting him fitter and stronger and in doing this improving his self-confidence.

EQ LIFE: I’m sure there are plenty of important people in this journey. Who is at the frontline here that makes you feel easy and confident in this intriguing and complex sport?  

JAYDEN: Without a doubt, Terry and Ginette Snow. They have supported a pretty big goal of qualifying one of our horses for Paris as well as breeding some pretty impressive horses back at home, which will hopefully find their way onto Australian teams with various riders in the future. I often get comments from people here who have seen the Willinga Park horses at shows, looked up the centre online and been completely blown away that such a great facility exists in Australia.

I also lean on my good friend and mentor Jenny Gehrke quite a lot. I share the videos of my lessons with Carl with Jenny, so everything I am learning with the horses here is also filtering through to other riders back home. Something I hope I can also do when I’m back training in Australia.

EQ LIFE: When will we see you back in Oz?

JAYDEN: I think it will all depend on how the final selection events go. I’d love to bring the horses and what I’ve learned here in the UK back to Oz and continue the journey with Willinga Park. In some ways, it has felt a bit like life has been on pause for two years, with a pretty ambitious goal as the focus. I’m looking forward to finding a little bit better balance and spending time with family and friends while still producing great dressage horses and, of course, finding the next big goal to work towards. In an ideal world, I’d love to be based in Australia and continue to come back to the UK regularly for short stints when I have a horse suitable for team selection.

PRESSURE IN PERSPECTIVE

It is easy to see the cool calm and focussed rider here in hearing Jayden’s thoughts. He is very logical and understands the sport very well. He throws himself completely into attempting to fulfil the goals that Willinga Park aims for, yet he keeps the pressure in perspective and realises the only way to get to that goal is to train diligently and fastidiously at every ride and then what will be will be. Quincy is only 10 years old and young to think of a chance at an Olympics, but he is up there with a great showing. There is no use thinking “try harder, work harder, compete more” as this will not help get a horse to the best it can be in Grand Prix. It takes time and every horse lets you know when that time is to push on. And so it is with Jayden… and what a rider and what an Aussie ambassador and all this thanks to Willinga Park and the unrelenting backing and positivity from Terry and Ginette Snow. EQ

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE TO READ:

UK Calling for Jayden Brown – Equestrian Life, April 2022