By Laura Scaletti
Portraits by Lauren Ann Wagner
“Every champion was once a contender who refused to give up” is more than a phrase tattooed on Jaclyn Pepper’s left arm; it’s how she lives her life. From the beginning of her equestrian journey to today, Jaclyn has always had a “head down, keep working hard” mentality.
While in Gladstone, New Jersey, for the 2014 USEF U.S. Dressage Festival of Champions, Jaclyn stopped in a local tack shop. As she was looking around, she spotted a frame with a photo that caught her eye. “In the frame was a photo of me and my teammates standing on the podium with our gold medals on and our flowers raised in the air after winning the 2013 FEI North American Junior & Young Rider Championships. Across the photo was the quote that is now on my arm,” Jaclyn said. “I loved it so much, I always wanted it to be part of me.”
Now Jaclyn is a professional dressage rider and trainer at her own Jaclyn Pepper Dressage, and her tattoo rings even more true. “In this sport, there are extreme highs and lows. The highs are incredible and keep us coming back for more, but the lows are rough. Sometimes it’s hard to push through the lows, but I always believe that things will get better, and I can’t give up,” Jaclyn said. “My motto has always been if there’s a will, there’s a way and I will figure it out.”
Horses as Healers
When Jaclyn was 3 years old, her family went to a fair where she begged her parents for her first pony ride. Her parents were skeptical that a pony ride would go smoothly for Jaclyn, a child who was terrified of everything, especially dogs. “I was burned badly when I was 8 months old after a waitress spilled boiling tea on me, and instantly, I was scared of most everything. So naturally, my parents thought I would freak out when I got on the pony. Little did they know that the freak out was going to happen two hours later, when they tried to get me off the pony and I wanted no part of it,” she said.
Thrilled that Jaclyn had found something that wasn’t scary for her, her parents immediately signed her up for lessons. “Horses took me from being a scared little toddler to opening a lot of doors and helping me build confidence in life in general,” Jaclyn said.
Not only did Jaclyn start taking lessons, but her mom also started taking lessons. Six years later, Jaclyn and her mom had the ultimate horse girl Christmas when they were both surprised with horses from Santa. “We had just moved into our new house and my parents were building a barn and an arena. Christmas morning, as we were heading to our pond to put out lily pads we had bought mom, I saw a lady with a pony and thought, Who is that? I was totally oblivious that it was a big Christmas present for me,” Jaclyn said. “The pony was Mountain Gold, Goldie, a 2 ½-year-old Haflinger pony my mom had bought as a yearling and they’d put a month of under-saddle training on prior to arriving at our house.”
With Jaclyn’s mom also getting a horse, the family suddenly had two horses at home and needed help improving their riding skills. Jaclyn soon began doing hunter-jumpers, competing her horse Levi in the Children’s Hunters and then got a mare, Millie.
“Millie is really what got me into dressage as she used to buck me off every week and at the same time, we still had Goldie who needed a little bit more training. My mom had hooked up with a dressage barn close to our house and suggested I take dressage lessons over the summer. I took Goldie over for a lesson, he stopped in the middle of the arena acting like he wanted no part of what I was asking. I was a little 13-year-old, but I wasn’t putting up with it, made him listen to me and got my point across,” Jaclyn said. “The trainer was wowed that I really knew how to ride at such a young age.”
Like many teenagers, Jaclyn wanted to jump; she didn’t want to focus on flatwork all the time. However, this attitude quickly changed as the summer went on and she had the opportunity to sit on several dressage schoolmasters. “I got to feel what it was like to do some of the more advanced movements and my jaw hit the floor. I had no idea you could teach a horse how to do any of that or really influence their way of going and make it better,” she said. “After I experienced that, it just completely changed my whole path with horses.”
Dressage Adventures
By the time Jaclyn was 17 years old, she was fully immersed in dressage and owned her heart horse, Taboo. “The first time I saw then-10-year-old Taboo, he was standing in the crossties and I thought he was the most beautiful horse I’d ever seen. I knew before I even sat on him that he was the one for me,” she said.
The duo went on to compete together at the 2011, 2012 and 2013 FEI North American Junior & Young Rider Championships (NAYC). Each year they finished in the top 10 in all three events—team competition, individual competition and freestyle—as well as winning a gold and silver team medal.
“In 2014, I chose to go to the USEF Festival of Champions for the U.S. National Championships instead of NAYC. We ended up third in the Young Rider division and closed out that chapter in our lives. I moved into the professional divisions, did Intermediaire I and competed in my first Grand Prix on Taboo,” Jaclyn said. “Rather than pushing him to stay in the Grand Prix level, I let him step down and become a lesson horse in my program, because he’s the best teacher you could ever find. He’s fully retired living the good life at my barn today.”
While Jaclyn and Taboo were making a mark in the show ring, Jaclyn was starting to plan for her future. “I always knew that I wanted to be a horse trainer and never had any other jobs besides working in a barn. Horses have always been it for me, and I wanted to put all my time and effort into building a business and my career,” she said.
After graduating from high school in 2011, Jaclyn worked as an assistant trainer before starting her own program in 2019. Jacyln Pepper Dressage is a boutique-style dressage training program at a private barn in Petaluma, California. “I currently have 15 horses in my program, three of which I own. I have a mix of people I train in addition to training their horses, sales horses and other horses in training,” Jaclyn said. “I’ve found that running a full-care training program makes it easier to make sure each horse is getting everything they need on a daily basis.”
Part of what makes Jaclyn’s operation a success is the support from her coach of 13 years, Volker Brommann. “He’s always been a great mentor to me. I know I can always go to him and he will give me his unbiased opinion and I can bounce training ideas off of him. Volker truly roots for me and helps get my name out there,” she said.
Dream Team
The year 2024 was one to remember for Jaclyn as she took Marsha Busekist’s mare Limited Edition, known as Ellie, to the U.S. Dressage Festival of Champions. Initially bought to be Marsha’s mount, Ellie has been ridden by Jaclyn since she was 3 years old. “When I started riding her, I thought, She’s kind of a handful, let me take over the training for a while. Things just kind of evolved from that,” Jaclyn said.
Two years ago, Jaclyn took Ellie to an Anne Gribbons clinic. “It completely allowed me to tap into another gear in Ellie’s trot work and she suddenly became very expressive. She’s always been a lovely horse, but it wasn’t until that clinic that I knew she had a fire within her to be an FEI-level prospect,” Jaclyn said.
The duo qualified for the 2023 USDF National Championship at the Kentucky Horse Park for Fourth Level and Prix St. Georges, finishing third and eighth, respectively. “I thought, If this goes well and she handles the travel well, we’ll try to qualify for the 2024 Festival of Champions,” Jaclyn said. “Qualifying for Festival of Champions was kind of a long shot, as you have to be in the top 15 in the country and have a 70% average score.”
After a slow start to the season, Jaclyn wasn’t sure Festival of Champions was in the cards for them; however, she kept her head down and kept pressing on. By the time they got to the final qualifier, Jaclyn and Ellie were consistently breaking 70% and ended up being ranked 10th in the country.
At the Festival of Champions, Jaclyn and Ellie competed in the Developing Prix St. Georges division. “The first day, when we rode the Prix St. Georges test, Ellie was spicy, in a good way, and gave me a completely clean test. I was crying as I came down the center line; we ended up fifth on that first day and I was beyond thrilled. The next day you ride the Developing Prix St. Georges test, and Ellie gave me some of the best quality she had ever given me in the show ring,” Jaclyn said.
Their Developing Prix St. Georges test helped them move up to fourth place overall. “It was so special to know that there were a lot of big names in that class, and I came in on my little self-trained horse and ended up fourth. My coach, Volker, was there to help me and Anne Gribbons also gave us advice, so it truly was the dream team making it all happen,” Jaclyn said.
Taboo Redux
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Jaclyn was scrolling Facebook when she saw an ad for a yearling, Obsidian, aka Ollie, from Taboo’s breeder, Deborah Harrison of Lio Lomas Dutch Warmbloods. “I had always wanted to get another horse from them. This one caught my eye and I realized he was actually related to Taboo. I went to visit him and he was completely feral; you couldn’t touch him, but I had to buy him,” Jaclyn said.
A few months and a proposal from Jaclyn’s now husband, Aaron, later, Jaclyn brought Ollie home. “I had actually planned on meeting the shipper to get Ollie home one weekend; unbeknownst to me my husband had planned to propose to me that weekend,” Jaclyn chuckled.
Much like Jaclyn was prior to starting her equestrian journey, Ollie was terrified of everything. “I eventually had to send him to a cowboy, JP Dyal, for a year to learn that people aren’t scary. He told me Ollie was the most difficult horse he’d ever trained, but he was also the most special horse,” Jaclyn said. “A while later I got a video of Ollie and JP in the round pen. Nobody was holding Ollie and JP was standing on top of him. He completely changed Ollie’s life.”
Now Jaclyn is ready to see where the future takes her with Ollie. “I’ve made him into a little dressage horse, taken him to a few shows and he’s been nothing short of incredible. Not only is he related to Taboo, but he’s also related to Ellie, so he’s a combination of a couple of really special horses in my life,” she said.
Ollie has once again reinforced the fact that every champion was once a contender who never gave up. “It’s been a very fun and challenging journey with him so far,” Jaclyn said. “I hope with Ollie and my other horses, I can be a representative of what dressage is really about—the harmony that happens between horse and human when they trust each other.”
For more information, follow Jaclyn on Facebook and Instagram @jaclynpepperdressage or visit jaclynpepperdressage.com
Photos by Lauren Ann Wagner, laurenannphoto.art
