Chloe Versteegen built one of Australia’s most decorated junior show jumping careers. Now, she’s traded Grand Prix fences for the stamina-building hills of Macedon Lodge.

Originally from Perth, the 22-year-old joins Macedon Racing as a track rider and brings with her an international equestrian pedigree. She was the 2017 Australian Children’s Champion, leading junior rider in Western Australia four years running, and leading junior rider at the 2021 Sydney Royal. She is a three-time WA State Champion and the youngest rider ever to win WA’s Patron Cup Grand Prix. A reserve rider for the Youth Olympic Games, Chloe then spent three to four years campaigning in North America and Europe, winning classes in the US and an FEI class in Spain.

Horses run in the family. Her mother, Melissa Versteegen, was an apprentice jockey in Tasmania, and it was her mother who first sat Chloe on a pony as a toddler. Racing came later. Five years ago in Perth she began riding trackwork for trainer Trevor Andrews, and her very first ride was an imposing gelding named Pencil. “He was huge,” she says. “More like a warmblood than a racehorse.”

She has since ridden work for some of Australian racing’s leading trainers: Simon Miller in Western Australia, Richard Litt in New South Wales, and Peter Moody and Tony and Calvin McEvoy in Victoria. While competing in America, she also rode at Florida’s Gulfstream training facility for trainers Ron Falcone Jr and Carlos David. 

The move to Macedon came through a familiar face. Chloe had known head trainer Sara Ryan from the showjumping circuit, and when the two crossed paths at Melbourne’s Caulfield Guineas meeting, the conversation quickly turned to a new opportunity.

Riding work for a trainer who rides every horse herself has made an immediate difference. “She has an understanding of what we’re feeling,” Chloe says. “When we explain something, or how a horse is moving, she just instinctively gets it.” Sara’s own equestrian background means the two share a language. “There’s a lot of trust there, and respect.”

After only a week in the saddle, Chloe says the expansive Macedon Lodge facility has already made a lasting impression. “It’s just such a beautiful and peaceful environment. The horses love it, they’re so relaxed.”

She nominates the straight hill track and the sand track that winds its way up into the Macedon bush as standout features that keep the horses mentally fresh and engaged. “You’re not just going around in a circle all the time. It gives the horses something different to look at, and they genuinely enjoy it.”

Chloe has swiftly formed warm connections with several horses in the stable, singling out three-year-old filly Girl With A Pearl and an unraced Diatonic colt for their personalities and temperaments.

Underpinning it all is the principle that has stayed with her since childhood: “Always put the horse first.”