Jamie Kellock: From Dressage Roots to Canadian Eventing Champion

Photo: Cealy Tetley, 2025

Canadian FEI CCI4* rider Jamie Kellock has built her eventing career through determination, family support, and a deep commitment to developing horses for the demands of high-performance sport.

Raised in a dressage-focused family outside Toronto, Jamie found her own path through eventing after discovering cross-country as a young rider. What began as a childhood fascination with speed, terrain, and partnership soon became a professional goal shaped by Pony Club, the North American Youth Championships, and mentorship from some of Canada’s leading eventing figures.

Today, Jamie operates Kellock Equestrian in Ontario while competing year-round across the North American eventing circuit. Her program reflects the realities of producing sport horses for a demanding discipline: thoughtful training, consistent management, and careful attention to nutrition, soundness, and recovery.

Through it all, her horse-first approach remains at the center of the growing program she has brought home.

From Shy Kid to Impassioned Eventer

Jamie grew up surrounded by horses, and she was not the first in her family to step into the spotlight. Her mother, aunt, and older sister, two-time Olympian and Pan American Games team gold medalist Lindsay Kellock, were all dedicated dressage riders. Jamie was happy to tag along, watch, and learn while the family went about the serious business of training horses.

Many evenings and weekends were spent at Toronto’s fabled Sunnybrook Stables, but despite all that barn time, Jamie had not taken many lessons of her own.

“I really loved the horses, but I was kind of a shy kid,” she explains. “I held off the formal lessons for a while, and in the beginning, it was my sister who taught me how to ride.”

As Lindsay progressed to higher levels, the family’s riding routine shifted away from Sunnybrook and into the equestrian heartland of Ontario, about an hour north of Toronto.

On days when Lindsay trained at the Royal Canadian Riding Academy in Cedar Valley, Ontario, with distinguished Canadian dressage rider Jacquie Brooks, Jamie took lessons at a local schooling barn. There, at 10 years old, she finally entered a structured riding program. Even with proper lessons, dressage never felt like the inevitable path for Jamie.

On a school horse, Jamie entered “D” Rally, a local short course eventing show she had anticipated all summer. It was her first experience riding at full pace out in the open, and the feeling was immediate.

With so many riders in her family training high-level dressage, branching out into a new discipline was not exactly convenient. But Jamie had their blessing, and with it, her riding career began to take off.

A Generation of Eventers

Eventing may have set Jamie apart from the dressage riders in her family, but she did not pursue it alone. She found a new kinship with her cousin, Hanna Bundy, who would later become a Canadian Eventing National Team member and FEI Eventing Nations Cup rider. Through their teen years, Jamie and Hanna’s riding careers developed almost in parallel.

“I say ‘we’ in all this, because, really, my cousin and I did it together,” Jamie says, emphasizing how deeply riding is woven into the fabric of her family.

That shared love of eventing took Jamie and Hanna to Foggy River Farm in Mount Albert, Ontario, where they committed to their first part-boards and began riding under Canadian Olympian and Pan American Games team gold medalist Edie Tarves.

“Edie was awesome! She gave me and my cousin an awesome crash course in eventing. We did all our first events with her, like Grandview and Glen Oro,” Jamie recalls of their development to the EV90 level. “She just taught us everything, including so much horsemanship and horse care.”

As Jamie’s confidence and maturity around horses grew, eventing became more than an exciting new discipline. It became a shared ambition, and increasingly, a bright future she could see for herself.

Finding the Path to High Performance

Around age 14, Jamie and Hanna began to realize that eventing extended far beyond their local show circuit.

“My cousin and I caught wind of Young Riders,” Jamie says, referring to the North American Youth Championships (NAYC), an annual Junior Olympics-style international event for riders then under 21, and now under 25.

For Jamie, Young Riders represented more than a major horse show. It was validation of her ambitions, proof that a pathway existed from local events to FEI-sanctioned international teams.

 

 

From her perspective in Ontario, the competition felt almost impossibly far away. But the more she learned, the more certain she became.

Jamie and Hanna started doing the math. The divisions were age-capped. There were qualification timelines. And without horses of their own, they had one obvious obstacle to solve.

“We kind of surmised together, off our research, that we need our own horses,” Jamie says. With their parents’ support, the teen duo’s families approached a local eventer who ran her own business in the neighborhood: three-time Olympian and five-time Pan American Games medalist Jessica Phoenix.

Upon meeting Jessica, 15-year-old Jamie recalls, “She has a super dynamic personality. She just inspires!”

Phoenix also had a couple of horses for sale. For Jamie, the option was a 5-year-old off-the-track Thoroughbred, Don’t Blink, who had recently been retrained by Jessica for eventing.

“The highest level I had gone was EV90, and the highest level the mare had gone was EV90.” Jamie explains. “So, we thought, perfect!”

Soon, the Young Riders dream became a plan, and Jamie had both the horse and the mentor who would help move it forward.

A New Ride, A Bigger Stage

With a new horse and Jessica Phoenix coaching her along the way, Jamie began to see her professional future in the sport more clearly.

She and Hanna started spending winters riding and showing in Florida, where they were exposed to a deeper field of competitors. With her sights set on the NAYC, Jamie saw how a goal like Young Riders could shape the next steps in her career.

In 2013, Jamie and Hanna both qualified for their first Young Riders competition as members of the Ontario team. Held that year at the Kentucky Horse Park, the event gave Jamie her first experience competing on that stage. “It was just so much fun,” she recalls. The following year, Jamie and Hanna qualified again while continuing to ride with Phoenix, this time helping Ontario secure a team bronze medal.

“Young Riders was a growing-up opportunity,” she says. “It taught me a lot about competing as a team athlete, and I learned a lot from my mistakes. You can learn from it, thankfully, early in your career, and put it into practice for the years ahead.”

By 2016, in her third appearance and final eligible year for Young Riders, Jamie arrived with a more balanced mindset. Under Phoenix’s mentorship, and with her family’s support, she found a way to combine the “no expectations” feeling of her first year with the competitive focus of her second. The result was an experience she describes as both relaxed and highly competitive.

“Even though I was just 21, I felt like a full-on professional with a ton of experience,” she says. “When I went to Colorado Horse Park, it was relaxing and fun, while also being highly competitive. It just all came together.”

Jamie placed seventh individually and rode alongside Canadian teammates April Simmonds, Emma Green, and Shelby Brost to secure a team silver medal.

Stepping into the Professional Pipeline

As Jamie’s Young Riders chapter came to an end, her student-mentor relationship with Phoenix continued to shape the next stage of her career.

With Phoenix Equestrian, Jamie worked her way up to Advanced level, known as EV120 in Canada, the highest level of competition offered by the United States Eventing Federation. The progression gave her the experience, mileage, and competitive foundation to approach the professional pipeline.

By 2022, Jamie was posting consistent results at the upper levels. After placing second at the Tryon International CCI4* Short Course, she caught the attention of Equestrian Canada, which named her to its National Training Program. “Just being on that list kind of put me on the map,” Jamie says.

That same year, Jamie made her Nations Cup debut on the CCI4*-L course in Bromont, Quebec. A few months later, she was competing at another FEI 4* in England at Blenheim Palace.

With international experience building and a stronger support system around her, Jamie was no longer just chasing opportunities. She was beginning to build the kind of program that could create them.

Kellock Equestrian: A Dream in the Making

Long before Kellock Equestrian had its own barn, the dream of bringing Jamie’s program home was already taking shape. Back when Jamie’s family was still commuting between a city home and country barns, they would drive past an old farmhouse that always caught their mother’s eye.

“Every time we drove past it, my mother would slow down and say, ‘I just love that old farmhouse.’ And we did that for maybe two years,” Jamie recalls. “And then one day, we drove past and it was for sale! That was it. We moved out of the city and into the country.”

At first, there was no serviceable barn on the property. Jamie’s family retrofitted the garage into two makeshift stalls, while Jamie continued to work and ride out of Jessica Phoenix’s barn in nearby Clarington, Ontario.

In the years that followed, Kellock Equestrian grew into Jamie’s own eventing program, built around training, competing, and developing horses for the sport. Alongside her own upper-level horses, Jamie also rides client horses, produces young prospects, and works with horses at different stages of their competitive careers.

Finally, in 2023, after 15 years, Kellock built a 10-stall barn on the land her mother had fallen in love with. For the first time, her business had a home base of its own. “It is an absolute dream come true for my mom and me,” Jamie says.

Building a Nutrition Program with Science & Supplements

As Kellock’s program has grown, so has the importance of managing each horse as an individual athlete. Training, fitness, turnout, and veterinary care all play a role, but for Jamie, nutrition has become one of the clearest places where small, consistent choices can make a measurable difference.

She was introduced to Mad Barn through one of her clients, whose event horses were already on a targeted supplement program.

“Both of her horses were pretty high-strung Thoroughbreds,” Jamie recalls. “She had them on Visceral+ and Omneity^® Pellets. Every time I would mention an issue with another horse to her, she would be like, ‘Mad Barn has a thing for that!'”

Eventually, Jamie took a look at Mad Barn’s products herself. “I thought I’d give Mad Barn a try, and I was so impressed!” She recalls.

For Jamie, gut support is especially important during the stress of travel and competition. Event horses are often shipping long distances, adapting to new environments, and peaking repeatedly through the season.

She has found Visceral+ useful for supporting her horses through that pressure. Visceral+ is a comprehensive gut health supplement formulated to support the stomach, hindgut, and overall digestive comfort, helping horses stay comfortable and consistent when training, travel, and competition demands increase.

Mad Barn’s Omneity^®, a comprehensive vitamin and mineral supplement, has also become a year-round foundation in her feed room. Jamie uses it across the board, in part because of the difference she sees in hoof quality.

Omneity^® provides a full serving of essential vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and biotin to help balance forage-based diets and support overall health, hoof growth, coat quality, and performance.

For harder keepers, particularly Thoroughbreds who need more calories while avoiding the hot behavior that comes with feeding excess grain, Jamie has had success adding w-3 Oil.

W-3 Oil provides concentrated, fat-based calories to help support body condition without increasing starch intake from grain. For event horses that already have plenty of natural energy, this can be especially useful for maintaining condition during high-intensity training and competition.

Kellock improved her horses’ feeding program further after connecting with a Mad Barn nutritionist to evaluate her program in person. Hay samples were taken, diets were reviewed, and each horse’s ration was assessed with performance and management in mind.

The visit helped Jamie refine the details of what she was already feeding. “It was good to really understand what I was feeding and helpful to make sure I was giving my horses the right amounts,” Jamie says.

For Kellock, the value of supplementation is not in chasing quick fixes, but in building a program that supports the horse from the inside out. At the upper levels of eventing, where every detail matters, that kind of day-to-day consistency gives her confidence in the horses she is producing.

A Horse-First Approach to High-Impact Training

For Jamie, the growth of Kellock Equestrian has always been tied to the horses in her care. From a shy young rider discovering cross-country for the first time to a Canadian FEI CCI4* competitor developing her own program at home, each stage of her career has reinforced the same lesson: success in eventing depends on preparation, partnership, and attention to the details that help horses perform with confidence.

That philosophy now shapes the way she manages her string, from training and travel to nutrition, recovery, and day-to-day care. With support from her family, mentors, clients, and the broader Canadian eventing community, Jamie has built a program that reflects ambition and dedicated horsemanship.

As she continues training horses for the demands of upper-level sport, Jamie’s focus remains firmly on the long game: developing athletes that are strong, healthy, consistent, and ready for the questions ahead. For Kellock Equestrian, every result in the ring or on course starts with the work done at home, and with a commitment to putting the horse first.