Years Of Hard Work Have Led Top Dressage Rider Allison Brock To The Pinnacle Of Her Career By Julie Unger
Top-ranked international and national dressage rider Allison Brock and her seven-year equine partner Rosevelt are looking forward to a successful 2016, perhaps even capped by a victorious appearance at the Olympics. Now 36 years old, it all started for Brock as a horse-crazy girl from a non-equestrian family. Her grandmother bought her a package of riding lessons for her seventh birthday. “They figured after four lessons I’d decide it was too hard, and I got too dirty, and all these things. The problem was, I did not think that,” Brock recalled. “I recognized as a small child what I was most passionate about. A lot of people don’t ever, ever get to experience what that means. I’ve been very fortunate to be able to turn my passion into my life.” At 17, Brock left her native Hawaii to pursue her dressage dreams, working with top professionals, including Colter SloAllison Brock and Rosevelt after a victorious ride at the Adequan Global Dressage Festival, shown with Janne Rumbough of Mtica Farm, judge Anne Gribbons and Allyn Mann of Adequan. PHOTO BY SUSAN J. STICKLE
36 march 2016 | wellington the magazine
cum, Jim Eldridge, Linda Landers, Lauren Sammis and Sue Blinks. When Brock was 22, she left the United States for the first time to discover the equestrian community in Europe, joining Blinks in 2002 for the U.S. team at the FEI World Equestrian Games. “It was incredibly educational,” Brock said. “Here I was, going with the U.S. team and living with Klaus Balkenhol, one of the most famous German trainers still alive. He’s an incredible human being, and an incredible horseman. Here I was, living at his farm. It just was amazing being around the people I was around.” Exploring the equestrian culture in Germany, she explained, was like being a kid in a candy store. From there, she traveled to the World Equestrian Games in Spain, where the U.S. won the silver medal. Brock continued her dressage adventure with other professional equestrians, such as Debbie McDonald, Guenter Seidel and Christine Traurig. She met Fritz and Claudine Kundrun while working with Blinks. “I was very fortunate with the people I worked for and the steps with how my career leapfrogged from here to there,” Brock said. “I was very fortunate to make some good choices, and it led me to the path of Sue Blinks and the Kundruns.” The Kundruns sponsored Blinks, and own Rosevelt, a Hanoverian stallion that Brock competes with and hopes to take to the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janiero. “There are so many things that have to line up with the horse and rider, and it’s about the combination,” Brock said. “When you buy them as a young horse, you don’t know what they are going to turn out to be, or if they’re going to stay healthy. They’re athletes, too, and they’re subject to things like us — injuries, illness, accidents.” Brock and Rosevelt won team gold at the April 2015 U.S. Nations Cup; 2014 Dressage at Devon Champion Grand Prix and 2014 Dressage at Devon Champion Grand Prix Special; 2014 USDF Hanoverian FEI Level Horse of the Year; 2014 Hanoverian Champion, Grand Prix, Open Division; 2015 CDI Alchleiten, Austria, second, Grand Prix Special; and multiple Grand Prix, Grand Prix Special and Grand Prix Freestyle wins on the Global Dressage Festival circuit. Last year, Brock and Rosevelt were on the U.S. team travel-