THE INTERVIEW
Ahead of Kentucky next month and after success at Burghley last year, the US event rider talks to Pippa Roome about growing out of her “child-like love of the sport” and fighting back from tough times
HEARTBREAK and success are the bedrocks of every interesting sporting story – and US event rider Jennie Brannigan has seen both in her 36 years.
She’s been a champion young rider, been listed for senior teams, and finished in the placings at five-star, including 12th at Burghley last year. She’s also flown around the world to events and fallen, lost horses in tragic circumstances and been suspended from the sport for a year.
She looks back on the autumn of 2021 as a turning point in her career. She’d been chosen as the anchorman for the US team at the Nations Cup final at Boekelo with FE Lifestyle. The first team rider had fallen, so she needed to go clear – or “clean”, as Americans say. And she did.
Validation from one of her mentors, former US performance director Erik Duvander, followed: “He said, ‘This is who you actually are – all that other s***, all those other things that happened, really aren’t you.’”
That was a pivotal moment, soon followed by her best-ever five-star result, fourth at Maryland with Stella Artois. But really, Jennie adds, it was about finding her maturity.
“I still love winning, but instead of being obsessed with it, I became a better horseman,” she says. “I started rating what each horse can do and not being a psycho if I didn’t win. I think a lot of people go through that phase if they win a lot when they are young.
“Now I want to have these horses in my career for a long time. I want to go to top events with my horses in good health. I want to be a horseman, not just someone who wins events. That’s equally important to me. I think you can do both… I’m going to try to do both.”
JENNIE was born in Chicago and didn’t ride until she was nine or 10 years old, when her family moved to the rural town where they had previously had a weekend home.
She says: “I went on a trail ride at the local riding barn and just fell in love with horses. I’ve always loved animals. I wanted to be a vet growing up, but horses took over and I did a bit of everything – endurance, whipped-in at my local hunt, showjumped. I lived in the barn. My first job was polishing brass for a combined driver for two dollars an hour.”
As a teenager Jennie was a working student for five-star rider Allison Springer.
“By chance I heard about eventing and I was like, ‘I want to do that’. I had no idea what it was,” laughs Jennie.
