Interview by Christopher Hector and photos by Roz Neave and Julie Wilson
There are some people who give off that sense of knowing where they are going, and having a fair idea of how they are going to do it, Jess Barton is one. She is a little like her equestrian set-up, not flashy, cool, efficient, topped off with a bubbly personality and charm.
It’s a big operation – stables full of horses, paddocks full of horses, a couple of lessons going on in the big indoor when we arrive. But it wasn’t always Jess the Showjumper, she started life looking pretty and going round in circles…
You started life as a hacky?
“Yes, I was. I was obsessed with horses when I was little, like from about two years old – I used to make Mum and Dad stop on the side of the road. I want to pat the horses!”
Were they horsey?
“Not really. Mum used to groom for a lady that had show horses when she was a kid but she grew up in Dandenong, so there was never any room to have horses. My grandfather had trotters, good trotters, and my uncle had a horse that won the Australian Pacing Championship.”
“I finally convinced Mum and Dad when I was about seven years old, the people down the road had horses and we borrowed one of their ponies for the day. We ended up buying it for $600. His name was Milo – he was really really tricky, he used to bolt if you gathered up the reins, he’d been ridden by people who played polocrosse on him, people who weren’t riders so they just used to swing off his face.”
“As soon as you took the reins, he just wanted to go, and I was a little seven year old, I wasn’t ideal. Mum used to lead me around Warrnambool. Then my grandfather bought a little pony for $50 from the sales – Dolly. It was a companion pony for one of his racehorses. Anyway I went down to his stables one day and just put a saddle and bridle on it and got on, not knowing if it was even broken in. ‘Pop look!’ – I was riding this pony around, and that was it, it was never a companion pony again. That was my first proper pony. I learnt to canter, and do everything.”
Jess and the hacky, back in 2007
“I hacked for years and I always loved it but I was always the kid sitting in the show ring, looking over watching the jumping. I actually became really good friends with all the jumping riders before I started showjumping – just through going to the Royal Shows. Katie Clarke gave me old Ben Gunn, who Maurice had ridden, and Judy evented, and Katie had as a junior horse. I only had him for a few months before he went unsound.”
“Then I didn’t have a jumping horse for a long time, so I continued to hack. I bought a horse from Damien Hanrahan, a little Thoroughbred horse and he was my first proper jumping horse – Carter. He didn’t really have a lot of talent, but he jumped around Part 3 at Brisbane and Adelaide Royal, all the junior and stuff like that. He wasn’t very easy to ride, but he was always very brave. I used to fall off a lot.”
Who taught you to ride and jump?
“I sort of used to follow everyone around at the start. I was always with the Barclays, then there was Lisa Monteath – she is a Kelly from Barwidgee. I used to turn up at shows and ride my hacks and then run over to the jumping ring to see if anyone had a pony I could ride. Sometimes I would ride for Lisa, I’d ride for anyone who had something to ride because I just wanted to do it so bad. Mum and Dad were dead against it, Mum wanted me to keep riding hacks.”
“I came across Highmont, he was the good hack I had. Midge Didham was training him, Jason James actually went and saw him and bought him. We got him going off the track, he was quiet, but a little bit quirky – he won Barastoc and was Reserve champion at Sydney Show. I loved getting them ready and training them, and I was happy to compete, but I hated the politics. So many times I was on some of the nicest horses I’ve ever ridden and I should have been winning but I wasn’t. I was devastated to sell him, but I had him and another good hack at the time, and I sold them both and bought a house.”
“I’d sold Carter to a junior, and so I was horseless for a while…”
“Along the way Jamie Murray used to help me, because I was never on any of the squads, and Laurie Lever used to help – still to this day, I bounce off Laurie. I’ve sort of done my own thing, but I’ve had good people to bounce off. Scottie Barclay was living around the corner and he started giving me a hand, and now he is who I would call my coach. Sam Bartlett comes and she gives lessons here a lot, Scottie lives too far away to have many lessons, maybe two this year, but I get a dressage lesson with Sam every couple of weeks.”
You groomed for Laurie Lever in the run up to the Beijing Games?
“That was pretty cool. When Laurie got Dan (Ashleigh Drossel Dan) and started jumping World Cups and it looked like he was going overseas, Laurie said, if I go away, I’d really love you to come and groom for me. I was flattered and I did it. It was a really good experience, I learnt a lot. It was great being around the good riders. I rode a lot at home for Gilbert Böckmann, then Gilly would send me to the show with his groom, and I would ride his horses the day before the show for him. I didn’t get to compete, but I was happy.”
Do you like riding young horses or do you enjoy the Grand Prix?
“I love riding the bigger tracks and I would love to ultimately do that, but for the time being I have to try and make it work financially, and so you have no choice, you have to ride young horses. I think most good riders have had to, and continue, to ride young horses. We were talking about this, now so many of the young riders just go and buy good horses, fabulous for the industry and fabulous for people like me who are trying to produce them, but then who is going to ride the young horses? It used to be that the young kids would come and ride the young horses, but now they don’t want to do it.”
“I love working with young horses, but I like working with nice young horses.”
You are involved in the breeding thing…
“I’ve come around a bit to the opinion that I’d like to let the breeders breed the horses and I will buy them when they are three or four years old, because financially by the time you get them to that age, it is so much expense, and you don’t know what you are going to get. Right now I have Celso, who my Mum bred, then there is the Vivant one, Volador who goes quite unorthodox, but he is a super jumper, and then Diamond B Valentina who I bought from Helen Chugg just a few months ago. The Celso horse is different because Mum bred it, but the other two, you could see what you were getting and I like that. But Mum loves to breed them, and she loves having foals in the paddock and watching them progress, and it gives me horses to ride…”
Jess and Volador. Photo: SEquine Photography
Where are you going to find that Olympic horse?
“I might be waiting a while. Laurie was sixty, I’m not impatient. I’d love to ride internationally and go to a WEG or an Olympic Games, but I am very realistic about it, and I am very realistic about going to Europe because I have been there and see it all, and I know there are 500 of me, who have more money and ride better, and have more access to the horses. You have to be realistic, but I think we can still do what Laurie has done, Chris Chugg has done and Jamie Kermond too, by producing the horses here really well before taking them over there. We still have some nice shows here now, and I think sometimes people leave too soon. I still feel there is a lot I can gain competing here. I can go to Europe for a few weeks a year and get some help, and stay amongst it, but there is still a lot to be gained riding here – and we get a better lifestyle.”
Indoor at home with Valentina
This article first appeared in the February 2016 issue of THM.