Brookfield Equestrian

The Brookfield prefix is synonymous with top-level eventing. Gemma Redrup meets the ownership trio to find out how the syndicate works and where they source their brilliant charges

WHETHER or not you’re an eventing enthusiast, it’s likely you have heard of Brookfield, a prefix

synonymous with the highest echelons of the sport.

Of the 20-plus Brookfield horses to have competed internationally over the past decade, flagbearers include Brookfield Inocent, who won team gold and individual silver at the 2021 European Championships, Brookfield Cavalier Cruise, who was runner-up in the CCI4*-L at Bramham in June, Brookfield Future News, who was second in the CCI4*-S eight- and nine-year-old class at Blenheim in September and Brookfield Quality, who was fifth in the CCI4*-L, also at Blenheim. And that’s just scratching the surface. But who are the people behind the prefix?

Brookfield Equestrian was the brainchild of husband and wife John and Chloe Perry, who own and live at their yard by the same name just outside Bracknell in Berkshire.

“Historically, John and I bought horses to produce and sell,” explains Chloe, who started riding when she was seven. “My mother encouraged me to ride and bought me horses like chestnut Anglo-Arab mares that didn’t want to do anything. Or something out of Ascot sales for £2,000 that I had to make into something, and that’s where my love for it stemmed from.”

Similarly, John’s life has also been steeped in horses.

“My father packed my bags when I was 16, I left school and was sent to Lambourn. I worked for a trainer called Farnham Maxwell,” he explains. “Eventually I came home, got a job in construction and worked to earn enough money to buy my own point-to-pointer. I did that for many years and then I was field master and whipped in for the Berks & Bucks Draghounds for a few years, too. I did a bit of Arab racing on the Flat as well and basically had a lot of fun with the horses.”