Jersey Fresh International 2018 is in the books. It was wonderfully exciting event with Boyd Martin winning a total of three FEI divisions, while Anna Loschiavo earned her first international victory on a horse she produced. Read on for the top riders’ thoughts at the end of today’s competition.
Boyd Martin on winning everything: “You love to win but you’re in the moment and you’re just doing everything you can to get your horse jumping each fence as well as they can. If you get caught thinking too much of the outcome or result you fizzle out pretty quick.”
Boyd on Long Island T (winner, CCI3*): “It’s been a very, very long road… I give credit to Richard Picken, my jumping coach… The way I like to ride horses is quite loose and open and free and Richard said ‘look if you want to get this horse going, you’re going to have to completely become a different rider for this horse and learn to package him.’ This horse likes a lot of support and so it was a good learning curve for me to try and change my style of riding for this particular horse. So it took a long time but towards the end of last year I started to get more confident with him and we’re in business now.”
Boyd on Kyra (winner, CIC3*): “She was brilliant. She’s all class. She’d be one of the best jumpers I have in training at the moment… She’s highly strung and was a little bit of a handful to get to know. In the last couple of months we’ve clicked together and I was pretty happy with her in all three phases… I always thought she was a bit too careful. She jumps really high and she’s sharp… I’ve been very fortunate that (High Performance Director) Erik Duvander has helped me a lot on cross country with her and been very helpful trying to get her bolder and braver and jumping out of stride. I didn’t rate her that much to start with but now she’s one of my best horses.”
Boyd on On Cue (winner, CCI2*): “She’s a lovely, lovely mare. Everything you love in a horse – movement and temperament and scope and gallop. To be honest I don’t think she liked all the puddles in the ring today. She’s a little bit of work in the show jumping and then with the mud splashing around – she was struggling over the first half of the course and all over the shop. Then we started coming good and then I was a bit lucky at the last, to be honest. Sometimes the stars align so I’m very happy for her.”
Boyd on Shamwari 4 (tenth, CIC2*): “He’s 16 years old now and he’s done Olympics and WEGs. There’s not a course in the world that he couldn’t jump, so it’s more just trying to prepare Shami to be fit and sound and raring to go come Luhmühlen. Every horse, you have to have a game plan for when you’re competing and training them. Shami I think has a couple of real big events left in him and winning the CIC2* at Jersey was not in that plan. It was more a fitness run and to stretch him out a bit and get him out and about. I think he’ll be very competitive at Luhmühlen.”
Boyd on team selection: “I don’t ever think about Championships or teams or selections; I think the selection for teams are a result of your performance at big events. If you get too obsessed about making the team you forget the piece of the puzzle that gets you picked… I think that’s what motivates us all and inspires us all but to get to the Championship, especially in America now, you can’t tippy-toe around and get picked. You’ve got to go for it. I think it’s a good thing though because if you’re from a nation that doesn’t have that many combinations, you end up trying to go the easy way and the goal becomes getting selected, and that shouldn’t be the goal – it should be putting in a personal best performance at a Championship for your country.”
Caroline Martin on a good day of show jumping: “I just wanted to put in good clear rounds. They’re all really nice young horses and I honestly thought if I have a rail I have a rail, but I’m just trying to produce them to the next level… I just want to be consistent at the upper levels. It’s always nice to win but Boyd’s put in way more years of hard work than I have. He deserves to be number one. I just hope in 20 years I can catch up.”
Caroline on Islandwood Captain Jack (second, CCI3*): “I’m excited about him because I’ve had him since a 4-year-old so I’ve been producing him slowly. I always said he was going to be a really good upper level horse so I’m just glad that my predictions were right. You don’t know until it happens.”
Caroline on Jump Jet (second, CCI2*): “He’s a super nice horse. We’re definitely still getting to know each other. Yesterday we were ten seconds under time. He’s quick but I still felt like I was taking my time and getting to know him at the gallop jumps. He’s a little bit spooky so you definitely have to keep your leg on in certain places, but Piggy (French) did a wonderful job producing him. There’s nothing that horse doesn’t know. So it’s just me trying to stay on and do the best job piloting.
Caroline on injury recovery: “I just want to give a shoutout to Leslie Law for keeping my horses going when I broke my foot (at Carolina International) and for dealing with me while I was on the sidelines… I’m really lucky to have such a good support crew. The grooms at home have done such an excellent job through all this rehabbing for me. It’s such a huge team and, I bet Boyd would say the same, that when you get hurt you realize how good the people are around you.”
Anna Loschiavo on Prince Renan (winner, CIC2*): “I could not be happier with him. He just tried his heart out for me out there. He has been jumping in the best form and show jumping was quite a bit of a struggle coming up. He’s very athletic but I think he didn’t really know it in the beginning… That was a double clear because he wanted it to be a double clear and he made every last effort to make sure he didn’t touch anything.
“Over the last year I’ve been working with David O’Connor and he’s really just finessed our show jumping, and I think phenomenally helped me with Renan to get the finishing pieces to it. We’re definitely getting there but it’s come a long way in the last year for sure. I just feel very confident when I go in the arena. We’ve pulled off double clears before but I would leave the arena going ‘I’m not sure how that happened.’ Now I feel like I can canter in and really trust him and he trusts me and we have a little bit of fun for 85 seconds.”
Holly Payne-Caravella on CharmKing (second, CIC2*): “My horse is a phenomenal jumper but he’s still pretty young and inexperienced, and as he’s gotten fitter he’s gotten a bit wild so it’s just about trying to tame him and direct him. I was really pleased with him today because he actually was feeling frisky but listened and stayed with me and jumped amazing. He jumped me out of the tack a couple of times but I’ll take it if he jumps clean. He was a lot more rideable even though he had a lot of energy in there.”
Alexa Lapp on Cambalda (third, CIC2*): “He’s so good. Jennie (Brannigan) had a really consistent show jumping record (with him) obviously… but I’m not Jennie. At a little bit of a lower level he doesn’t try as hard as at the three-star level so he was touching a couple of things. But he knows just how much he has to jump to jump clean… My other horse was kind of a wild card so it’s nice to be able to go in and if I don’t ride completely stupid he’ll probably jump clean. It’s so confidence building.”
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