Nicole Walker grew up around horses. As the granddaughter of Austrian-Canadian businessman and thoroughbred racing giant, Frank Stronach, she was exposed to the equine industry at an early age. As a junior competitor, Walker excelled in the equitation ring. At the 2010 Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in Toronto, she won the Jump Canada Medal National Final riding SS San Remo and finished second in the Running Fox CET Medal National Final. A year later, the pair returned to The Royal to claim the 2011 Running Fox CET Medal National Final title.
Walker then began dominating the Under 25 division for show jumping competitors aged 25 and under. Having won several events during the 2017 season, she capped off the year by claiming the Under 25 National Championship, once again held at Toronto’s famed Royal Agricultural Winter Fair, in front of a home crowd riding Excellent B. The win came hot on the heels of her first major international grand prix victory in the $100,000 Grand Prix de Penn National at CSI3* Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, riding Falco van Spieveld.
In 2018, Walker once again stepped up her game, this time facing off against veteran professionals and Olympians to claim the Canadian Show Jumping Championship title. Quickly catching the attention of Canadian Show Jumping Team selectors, Walker made her Nations’ Cup debut at the 2019 Winter Equestrian Festival in Wellington, FL, riding Falco van Spieveld. Her stellar performance led to selection for two more Nations’ Cup appearances in Coapexpan, Mexico, and Langley, BC, where she led the Canadian team to victory on home ground.
Walker is based at her family’s Adena Springs in Aurora, Ontario, and trains with 2012 Olympic individual bronze medalist Cian O’Connor of Ireland. She has served as Vice-President of The Stronach Group since 2017 and has been a member of the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance Board, a non-profit organization that accredits, inspects, and awards grants to approved aftercare organizations to retrain, retire, and rehome Thoroughbred racehorses, since January of 2018.
