Family, Fate, and Five-Star: The Brooke Burchianti Story

Brooke Burchianti sat down with Annie Bishop on this week's episode of the US Equestrian Open Podcast. Find the full episode here.

In Her Blood

Some riders find horses. For Brooke, it was never really a question. Her mother competed through the intermediate and three-star level, producing thoroughbreds up through the levels. Her grandmother rode too. By the time Brooke was three, sitting on her mother's big dressage horse, it was already decided. Pony Club and Welsh ponies led to a single-minded certainty that this was to be Brooke’s job and not a phase.

"Ever since then I was like 'This is this is for me, there's nothing else that I want to do.' Ever since I was a kid, I was like 'I want to ride horses my whole life. That's the job I want. That's it. And that's what I ended up doing.'"

From there she went to James Madison University, where she studied sports management; a degree that, it turns out, maps almost directly into running an equestrian business. With a degree in her back pocket for if the horses didn’t work out, she returned home to Pennsylvania, took over the farm her mother had run, and began building something of her own.

Family Dynamics

The farm her mother Karin owns is also where Brooke trains which means her first and most important coach is also her mother. That dynamic, as Brooke is quick to admit, has not always been smooth.

"When I was a kid, I was a bit defiant and I didn't necessarily take instruction super well from her. I take it well from other people."

The turning point came when Brooke recognised that there weren't many people in the area who had competed to the level her mother had. She decided to stop being a daughter at the barn and start being a student. Brooke has learned to listen to her mother’s advice because she knows her, and more to the point, knows Astro, better than anyone.

The Second Choice

Brooke made the trip to Cooley Farm in Ireland looking for a horse. She had her eye on one horse in particular but horses being horses, that one failed the vetting.

Cooley Space Gray or Astro to his friends, was next on the list. She sat on him twice over two days and they just clicked.

"I think we just kind of matched each other. I think he knew that I wasn't going to get in his way too much. I was just there to be his friend more than anything and that's honestly what he needs."

He was only 6 and had come from a show jumping barn meaning he had no eventing experience and Brooke would have to build everything from scratch. But she bought him anyways, brought him home to Pennsylvania, and got to work.

Fast forward 7 years and Brooke has produced Astro all the way from his first 2* to their 5* debut at Kentucky last year.

His name came from Brooke's interest in astrology and from the feeling, looking back, that the whole thing was written in the stars. The first horse wasn't meant to be hers. Cooley Space Gray was.

Everything His Way

Astro is not a complicated horse to ride. He is, however, completely on his own terms.

The mare Brooke had before him was a hot chestnut thoroughbred that she describes as a dragon. Astro is the opposite. He runs in a snaffle across all three phases. Brooke could take a breath and he would slow down. On cross-country, his ears come up, he looks for the next fence, and he goes.

What he does not do is take instruction he hasn't agreed to. This extends to basic yard management. One morning this winter, Brooke went to catch him in the field and he simply declined.

"He's like 'I don't think I want to come in right now - you're not going to catch me,'  and so I literally will just open the gate and just be like 'Just come in when you can buddy.'"

The same quality that makes him hard to catch (occasionally) is what makes him so effective on course. He does not get in his own way. He does not need to be managed into submission. He jumps because he wants to jump and the results show it. Last year, he and Brooke were one of just four combinations to finish on their dressage score at an Open qualifier. 

The String Behind Brooke

Brooke doesn't have one type of horse, she has every type.

Cooley Constellation, known as Aries, is the almost-exact opposite of Astro: nearly 17 hands, long, gangly, and in Brooke's words “the sweetest horse in the barn”. He stepped up to the 3*L at Maryland last season and Brooke believes he has a five-star in him when the time comes.

Then there is KHH Lanesboro or Bart. Also from Ireland, Bart is smaller and more similar to Astro. He is competing at the CCI1* with aims to step up in the spring.

A third Cooley horse is incoming but her name is undecided. It will, Brooke confirms, be on the astrology theme.

The Future

Astro is on a well-earned break after the season. A few minor strains—nothing serious, but enough to justify some rest—mean he’ll return this summer, with autumn plans still taking shape. 

Aries is aiming for Carolina to kick off the year, with a long-term goal of stepping up to Advanced in the autumn. 

Bart is set to move up to 2* in the spring, Virginia is a possibility, though plans remain flexible.

When Brooke first went to Cooley and sat down with Richard Sheane, she nearly kept her biggest goals to herself. But she said it anyway: she wanted to ride at Advanced, and one day at five-star. She’s achieved these goals now... so the next chapter is hers to write.

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