Jock was born in Wellsford, New Zealand in 1983, and moved to Australia with his family in 1986 where he was raised. He grew up near Sydney in a town called Pendle Hill. Jock left school at 15 to take an apprenticeship as a bricklayer, on completion of his apprenticeship he started to develop an interest in horses. At age 20 he took a job as a working pupil for international event rider, Kevin Mcnab. In less than 3 years Jock progressed from never even jumping a fence to placing 4th in his first 3 star in Melbourne, Australia.

Jock then moved back to New Zealand and took a job as the principle rider for Clifton Eventers. Jock picked up the ride on many Clifton horses but it was a few special ones that helped him make his name. They were Clifton Promise, Clifton Lush, Clifton Razz and Clifton Signature. In 2010, after a very successful 3 years competing in New Zealand with multiple major titles to his name, Jock travelled to the northern hemisphere and competed at the World Equestrian Games in Kentucky for his first major championship with Clifton Promise where he finished in 7th place individually. This result created opportunities which allowed Jock to move to the UK and base himself there. Jock stayed in the UK and competed for the next 7 years racking up a long list of exceptional performances, some of which include a team bronze medal at London Olympics and 10th individually, 1st Bramham CIC 3*, 1st British open CIC 3*, competing in over 20 4* events with 16 of them at the major’s i.e. Kentucky, Badminton and Burghley and never picking up a jump fault cross country.

At the end of 2016 Jock moved back to New Zealand to take the position of Performance Coach for Equestrian Sports New Zealand while continuing to ride competitively from a base in New Zealand. Since being back in New Zealand Jock has travelled to Australia to compete in the bi annual Trans-Tasman
championship which New Zealand won as a team and Jock won as an individual. This was the first time it has been won by New Zealand in over a decade.

Jock has a huge passion for coaching and enjoys the opportunity to be exposed to many different riders and horses and the learning that brings. He loves the challenge of working with riders to bring out their best in a way they can replicate on their own, through true understanding. With over 12 years of coaching experience Jock is driven to continue his development as a coach and has done so by completing a phycology paper to better understand the psychology at play in sport and also being part of the highly regarded Coach Accelerator Program. This program provides 3 years of intensive learning about the art of coaching, developing leadership and coaching styles to be the world’s best and to enable him to lead his athletes and teams to world’s best performances.