Bruce Davidson – Still Going Strong, part 1

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You could be forgiven for thinking that Bruce Davidson had perhaps finally settled into a comfy chair to enjoy watching his son, Buck carry the torch in those famous red and yellow colours; after all with a fistful of medals from every major Championship in almost each colour, a Badminton & Burghley win to his credit, having been a mainstay on the US leading rider list for many years, and now a member of the US Eventing Hall of Fame there wouldn’t seem to be much left to achieve. You would be forgiven, but you would be wrong! I made just this mistake and Bruce very kindly described to me exactly how busy he is, what excites him these days, and why we most definitely shouldn’t discount seeing him back at the very top of the game again. I’m incredibly honoured and grateful to Bruce for his time, and also completely bowled over by his utter lack of ego, willingness to talk, love of the game and, above all else, of course – the horse.

“I have some nice, young horses, and I’ve been doing some low-level things with them – training and preliminary. They’re pretty fancy horses so I’m not pounding on them but they’ll come out in July and do a couple more preliminaries, and then I’ll step them up at the end of the summer. That’s my stallion, Keltic Lion, and I have a very, very nice grey mare called Here’s Lola, and I ride a mare for Sophie Dupont called Expensive Playmate. I have those three, and that’s all I’m doing with them, and then I have any number of young horses on the farm that I play with.”
There’s a common thread or two that run along the breeding lines of all the horses in Bruce’s programme, lines that hark back to Eagle Lion and JJ Babu, but the threads tend to weave and  tangle together; I tried to keep them straight in my head as Bruce talked to me, but in the end all that matters is that Bruce is breeding some jolly nice horses,
“Keltic Lion is out of a sister to Eagle Lion and he’s by Lux Z, the german show-jumper.  Patricia Nicholson bred him in Ireland and he’s out of that great family. We thought it would be great to put the mare to the German horse once, and Keltic Lion could also be a pure show-jumper, he could do that as well but he has enough blood in him and he has enough gallop that I don’t think that eventing would be an issue either. He’s a six year old and I’m having a great time with him; he has a great temperament, he’s good on the flat, he’s a great jumper, he’s very much an Eagle Lion type horse, he’s just a really, really nice horse. I suppose he might be my reason to come back and do another four star, he’s that good of a horse, and he’s pretty straightforward, so as long as I don’t fall off too much he’s my big white hope!” 

The grey mare is more of an old fashioned Bruce Davidson type horse, and Bruce is happy to share the love,
“The mare, Here’s Lola is thoroughbred and she’s the JJ Babu family; she’s out of a mare that’s a niece to JJ Babu – her mother was JJ Babu’s full sister. That’s what I do, I mix the Eagle Lion family with the JJ Babu family. I bred the young stallion Lust who was out of JJ Babu’s full sister and so I put that blood with the Eagle Lion blood, and the Little Tricky blood, and mixed up the horses that were good to me and it seems to work.”
Rock on Rose, who finished 11th at Rolex last year with Boyd Martin deputising for an injured Bruce, was also closely related, and has since been sold,
“She was by Lust, and it was very hard to sell her; she’s a lovely, lovely horse and would make the most exceptional broodmare someday. In the perfect world I would have kept her, and I would have enjoyed watching Boyd ride her and do more with her; it was quite nice her first time at a four star to come 11th? Not too bad! She wasn’t very experienced but she’s a very good jumper and very honest, and we had a lot of fun doing that, and the young lady that has her now is having some success so that makes me as happy as anything. Boyd also has a young horse now that is out of Eagle Lion’s half sister, and he’s very high on it, and that makes me happy, and it’s fun watching him go on that.  Andrea Leatherman (Buck’s girlfriend) has a mare of ours that we bred, that she rides and does a beautiful job with her. Buck rides a horse of mine that just now sold so he has to pick something else out here on the farm and get going on it. That’s what it’s all about; I have as fun much watching the horses I’ve bred go for other people, at whatever level they’re going, as I do riding them myself.”

I ask Bruce why he thinks it’s so difficult for Americans to go abroad, to England or Europe, and compete successfully,
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“I wouldn’t put it that way; I would say initially it’s always a transition stage for any rider to move off the turf they’re familiar with onto turf they’re not familiar with, and I think it takes time in the learning process to a) become successful where you’re familiar, and then b) become consistently and dependably successful where you’re not familiar. I think that to go to a new site, particularly a Badminton or Burghley, something of this magnitude the very first time, which is in many young riders’ cases the first time they’ve even seen it other than maybe on a tape, but I think to put yourself in that position, it takes each person a little bit of time to settle down and get on with the job the way they can, or hopefully can. I think a great deal of Canada’s success last year was due to the fact that they were all very familiar with Kentucky. A lot of the Brits have done very well at their home competitions because from children they’ve gone there and watched them, and it’s something they’ve grown up expecting to do. The familiarity gives you a sense of being in the right place and a little bit more a sense of ease. Being in a brand new place, particularly if everything is different, can take people time to settle down and get used to all that.” 
Was Bruce himself overwhelmed when he first competed in England, I wonder, although I can’t imagine it? His answer of course, should not surprise me by now; true to form, he’s disarmingly frank, and modest,
“I think I was overwhelmed all my life. I think that each experience is awesome and daunting, and can overwhelm you. When I look back on the places that I had what seem to be my most straightforward successes, I guess I just went and did my job, and did not get too involved in anything other than the course, the stable and the arena. You zone in on that, but that takes time. You have to become familiar with the travel, and doing your last gallops in places you’ve never been before, and doing your last schools in facilities that aren’t just like the ones you’re used to, and so forth. I think for a lot of people, initially, all of that is slightly unsettling.”
“I think a lot of people, also, make the journey and expose themselves before they’ve really accepted the exposure that’s available here. We have a very good season here, and there’s a lot to do. Until you win Kentucky and until you win Fair Hill, and maybe until you win them both in the same year, it seems to me, it’s each individual’s private case if they want to go beyond that, but if you go beyond that you’re doing it prematurely. You don’t get a better competition than Fair Hill and you don’t get a better competition than Kentucky. If you haven’t proven yourself regularly there, then it would be amazing if you went elsewhere where you were less familiar and had better success. I think people maybe get excited prematurely and that’s unfortunate for the horses.” 

Check back Wednesday for part 2 of my interview with Bruce, where he discusses Buck, his legacy, and enjoying life.  Thank you so much to Bruce for the interview and Go Eventing!

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