Dana Cooke. Equestrian.
Dana started riding before she could tie her shoes. Since then, she has earned her a place at the top of international equestrian sport.
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5 ★ Competitor
Kentucky · Millstreet · Blenheim Palace · Carolina International CCI · Bromont
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Pan Am Bronze
Team Canada · Lima 2019 with FE Mississipp
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WEG 2022
FEI World Eventing Championships · Pratoni, Italy with FE Mississippi
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Dressage
USDF Silver Medal and Bronze Medal
USDF Bronze Medal with Distinction
Where it Started
Merritt, BC. Population, small.
Horses, everywhere.
Dana Cooke grew up in Merritt, British Columbia — a logging and ranching town tucked into the Nicola Valley that is, by most measures, about as far from the international eventing circuit as you can get. Her father operated heavy machinery for Douglas Lake Ranch, the largest working cattle ranch in Canada. Her stepdad was a cowboy. Her mom has been involved with eventing commitees from Pony Club, to Young Riders to the Canadian Eventing Team. Her older brother evented. Her younger sister did rodeo. The family photo albums are basically a field guide to every equestrian discipline except polo.
There is a photo of Dana as a toddler, watching her brother's Pony Club lesson with a soother in her mouth, already paying attention. She started riding around age four, joined Pony Club shortly after, began eventing at eight, and never really stopped to reconsider. The sport suited her: disciplined enough to reward the work, wild enough to be genuinely fun.
She graduated as a Pony Club 'A' — the highest rating in the system, requiring years of structured horsemanship education — and competed in Little Britches Rodeo along the way, because why limit yourself. The cowboy roots and the eventing ambition were never in conflict. They just made her more complete.
Childhood Home
Merritt, British Columbia — Nicola Valley, Canada
First Discipline
Pony Club eventing, age 8. Also: Little Britches Rodeo, of course.
Pony Club rating
'A' Graduate — the highest certification in the system
“I told myself: if I can't make something happen in the next five years, I need to find a different career path. It's a hard life, and there are a lot of people doing it who don't make it.”
— Dana Cooke, Horse Sport Magazine
Education
Dana went south for a year.
She stayed for a career.
In 2008, at twenty years old, Dana moved to Norwood, North Carolina to take a working student position with fellow Canadian Rebecca Howard at The Fork Stables. It was supposed to be a year. It turned into something she still hasn't left — though the work, the ambitions, and the address have all changed considerably since then.
For four years she traveled the world alongside Howard: grooming, managing horses, learning the rhythms of elite competition from the inside out. She stood in the warm-up at the 2011 Pan American Games in Guadalajara. She was in London for the 2012 Olympics. Not as a competitor — not yet — but watching, absorbing, paying attention the same way she had as a toddler at her brother's Pony Club lesson. Just without the soother.
After the London Games, Howard relocated to the UK. Dana returned to The Fork as Equestrian Director and Resident Trainer — the position her mentor had vacated — and began the next chapter: building her own string of horses and competing her way up the levels herself. She had given herself a five-year window to make it work. She made it work.
In 2010, before all of that, she had already accepted the Assistant Equestrian Director role at The Fork. She was learning how to run a program while she was still learning how to be an elite rider. Both educations were happening at once, and both would prove essential.
Arrived in NC
2008 — working student position, age 20
Mentors
Clayton Fredericks —Australian Olympic Eventer, Silver Medalist 2008 Olympics, World Championships Individual Silver and Team Bronze Medalist, World Cup Champion 2005 and 2008, 2012 London Olympics, International Cross Country Course Designer
Rebecca Howard — Canadian Olympic eventer. Two-time Pan Am Games rider, 2012 London Olympian, Current Team Canada Technical Advisor
The Job
Groom, rider, right-hand person for Rebecca. Present at the 2011 Pan American Games (Guadalajara) and the 2012 London Olympics — behind the scenes, learning everything.
Now rider, trainer, owner of Dana Cooke Equestrian
“Working for Rebecca exposed me to what it’s like to be a part of a national team. I wouldn’t be where I am today without those years.”
How She Trains
Dana’s Philosophy:
Good horses, well made.
Dana's approach to training is a direct reflection of her own formation in the sport — patient, foundational, aimed at longevity rather than shortcuts. She trains horses she wants to be proud of: horses that go well not because a talented professional can make them, but because they have been given the tools to go well for almost anyone.
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Look for jumps
At the five-star level, a horse that wants to jump is worth more than a horse that simply can. Dana's horses are trained to find their distance, not to wait for the rider to find it for them.
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A good brain above all
Talent without temperament is a problem waiting to happen at the upper levels. Dana looks for horses that think — that are curious and brave, not just athletic — and then she builds on that.
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Light to the aids
A horse that responds to subtle communication is a horse that's genuinely educated — not one that's been overridden into compliance. Dana's horses are trained to be responsive, not just obedient.
“I strive to train horses so that not just professionals will be able to ride them. Professionals are talented and strong and can make horses go the way they want. However, a less experienced or amateur rider cannot come close to reproducing that. My primary goal is to give a horse a good foundation in the basics — so it can go well for nearly every kind of rider and have a happy future.”
Beyond the Arena
Serious about the sport.
Not so much about herself.
If you follow Dana on social media — and at over 15,000 Instagram followers, a significant number of people do — you will notice something the competition results don't capture. She is funny. Genuinely, unexpectedly funny. The same person who rides cross-country at the five-star level with calm competence has an entirely different energy the moment the boots come off.
Dana grew up skiing and snowboarding in the BC interior, chasing cows with her stepdad, and playing what she describes as "a lot of sports." She is the daughter of a heavy machinery operator and a cowboy. She moved across a continent at twenty with a plan that was mostly ambition. That background produces someone who takes work, but not themselves too seriously.
What Dana does take seriously: the horses. Her students. The craft of eventing. The idea that if you're going to do something at the highest level, you owe it to the sport and the animal to do it properly. Everything outside that — the image management, the gravitas, the performative solemnity that some elite athletes seem to feel is required — she leaves for other people.
Dana is the kind of rider other riders want to be around. That's not a small thing in a sport that can be both isolating and intense.
Growing Up
Merritt, BC — skiing, snowboarding, rodeo, Pony Club
Off-Duty Priorities
Somewhere warm. Good food. A beach. Preferably with something cold in hand. The horses get first priority on every other day of the year.
Be part of what she’s
building.
Dana's program is growing — in competition, in coaching, and in the ownership and partnership opportunities that make it all possible. There are several ways to get involved, from sponsoring the program to owning a share in one of her competition horses.
