United States Eventing Association

The economics of being a professional rider often mean selling your top horse to fund the next group of young horses, and that’s exactly what brought Kate Brown to Ireland four years ago on a cold, stormy night.

Brown had just sold one of her Advanced horses and was looking for a young horse who she could develop, and within the first five minutes of sitting on Kokoleka, she knew she’d found her next partner.

“Immediately I was like, ‘This is my horse. I will take her,’ ” she recalled. “I loved how light and forward and she was, almost like a like a cat across the ground, just so agile and almost like a little spider. She gave me a feel that she could really jump a big jump, even though all I did was try a couple cross rails on that particular ride.”

With patience and a careful plan, Brown has brought along “Koko,” now 8, through the CCI3*-L level, and for their 2025 results, Koko was named the USEA 7-year-old Horse of the Year.

“She's been pretty straightforward to bring along,” Brown said. “She jumps all the jumps and is happy to show up to work every day, she’s just a spooky lady! It was a cool bonus for the year [to win.] It's just really kind of cool to see that our progress could get a result, even when I wasn't going out trying to be the absolute fastest, or the most competitive at each horse show throughout the year.”

Aside from a couple of green 20s on her cross-country record in her first few events, Koko has had a spotless cross-country jumping record since early 2023. The Irish Sport Horse (Sligo Candy Boy x Castle Pacino) participated in the USEA Young Event Horse Program as a 4- and 5-year-old, completing the 5-year-old YEH East Coast Championships (Elkton, Maryland) in 2023.

Last year is when Koko really started to show her talent for the upper levels. The pair earned a fifth-place finish at the Ocala International CCI3*-L (Florida) in the spring and were 12^th at the CCI3*-L at Maryland in the fall.

“I went out at the beginning of the season just thinking we'll move her up to Intermediate, and we'll just canter around and gain experience. I never went for certain results,” said Brown. “I never went for time. I'd want to put in the best dressage we could and hopefully have a nice, clean show jump round. But I spent the whole year just trying to ride the horse I had on the day, and that actually ended up getting us some pretty decent results.

“She has kind of surprised me,” she added. “Each weekend I'd have like, one little goal in my mind to chip away on that weekend, and she would just do it,” she continued. “As the season went on it started to feel easier and easier for her, which was awesome.”

Brown was particularly proud of Koko’s performance at Maryland over a formidable cross-country course.

“That's such a big environment,” she said. “And there's that stadium, and she really stepped it up. She kept a lid on it for that. She really kept it together for the dressage. I was expecting a lot more spooks on cross-country. She was fantastic. I was held on course briefly, but it didn't really mess up on flow too much, and then she was a little bit spooky Sunday for show jumping, but I was really, really pleased with her as a whole. Last fall I ended up having a couple other elite level riders reach out and want to buy her for themselves. At that point, I was already thinking that this is a pretty cool horse. And then that just secured in my mind when other people were inquiring about her also. I think I'm going to keep my hopes and dreams going with this one a little bit longer!”

Brown, Aiken, South Carolina, is planning to move Koko up to Advanced at this week’s Bouckaert International (Fairburn, Georgia). “I’m super excited,” she said. “I make up all my horses from beginning, so she will hopefully be the fourth horse that I've made up from their earliest handful of rides all the way up to the Advanced level. I'm really looking forward to bringing one more up through its entire career, and then hopefully we can go as far as we can.”