Tina Cook

Kristina (Tina) Cook has been eventing full-time since she was sixteen. When she was 20, she won a Land Rover scholarship to be based at Gatcombe with Captain Mark Phillips, where she trained for a year.

Tina’s father, Josh Gifford, was four-time Champion Jockey, while her mother, Althea Roger-Smith, was a successful international showjumper who won the Queen Elizabeth Cup, came second in the Hickstead Derby and represented Great Britain in the Nations Cup. By the time Tina was born, her parents were training racehorses, and Tina’s earliest memory is of riding her mother’s old pony.

Tina and her younger brother, Nick, now also a racehorse trainer, rode throughout their childhoods and were active members of the local Crawley and Horsham Pony Club. It was through the Pony Club that Tina had her first taste of serious competition, selected to go to the Junior European Championships in Rome on Song and Dance Man.

Tina has vast experience at major championships, having competed at two Olympic Games, five World Equestrian Games and seven European Championships, picking up ten medals in the process. She was selected for the European Championships in 2017 with Billy The Red, where the pair returned with team gold, and they competed as individuals at the World Equestrian Games in 2018, finishing ninth.