Jane Bredin-Gregory

Unlike most British dressage riders, Jane Bredin was not from a wealthy background but instead emerged from the competitive Pony Club system in Cornwall. She was a junior eventing champion but after leaving agricultural college she found work at the stables of international dressage rider David Hunt and was encouraged to switch to dressage. Bredin swapped her car for her first grand prix standard horse and slowly rose through the ranks of British dressage riders but it was not until 1994 and the beginning of her partnership with the horse Cupido that she made her major championship debut.

In combination with Cupido she competed at the World Equestrian Games in 1994 and at the Olympic Games in Atlanta.

She set up her own stables in partnership with her future husband, the Hong Kong dressage rider Aram Gregory, and the pressure of building up the business and the lack of a top quality ride meant she was absent from the top level of the sport until the emergence of Lucky Star prior to the 2008 Games. The pairing found good form in the summer of 2008 and Jane Gregory, as she was known by then, returned to the Olympic Games twelve years after his first appearance.

Still in contention for a possible appearance at the 2012 Olympic Games she suffered a massive heart attack whilst training one of her horses and, after several days on a life support machine, passed away at the young age of 51.