Tim Boland is an unusual Eventer in that, he not only has the single minded goal of wearing the Australian Flag at an Olympics or WEG, he also has a business plan. Nowhere in his business plan is there room for teaching 12 year olds to ride 20 meter circles til he is 60 or jumping on the back of horses nobody else is prepared to sit on.
Instead, Tim is focused on ensuring he never again has to sell his potential WEG or Olympic horses to pay his feed bill. Tim now runs and owns Limitless Lodge, named after his best ever event horse Limitless, who now resides in the front paddock (with his mate Waratah, who was on the long list for WEG in The Hague 1994) of Limitless Eventing, one of three farms that form the backbone of Limitless Lodge.
Trackwork in a beautiful setting – horses train both clockwise and counter-clockwise
Tim has a relaxed manner and goes about his job in a professional manner. I caught up with Tim at the Adelaide Event, during the jog and he invited me to pop in one day, any time, to check out what he does at Limitless Lodge.
So today I set my alarm for 4.30am, packed my cameras, laptop and a coffee for the journey and headed down to Limitless Lodge.
During the 90 minute drive, I had plenty of time to reflect on the mad things we do, in the name of our sport. All Eventers are a little mad, my plan was to see Limitless Lodge on a normal day.
When confirming the visit with Tim, I asked what time they started their day? I figured, no point getting there after half the day is done. Tim starts his day in the office at 4.30am before heading down to Limitless Racing at about 5.30am, his team start feed-up at 5am. So my plan was to arrive somewhere at around 6am when the yard was in full swing.
Limitless Racing is the showpiece of the Limitless business. This 30 acre property is dedicated to preparing race horses for Australia’s top breeders, trainers and owners. It has 66 stables with an overflow farm across the road for the peak periods.
On any given day Limitless Racing will be home to some of Australia’s best blue blood thoroughbred’s including those sired by Redoute’s Choice (Arrowfield Stud) and Encosta De Lago (Coolmore). Yes, there was millions of dollars to be seen down each breezeway.
I found Tim putting some horses through their paces on the Aqua-Ciser. This is a great way of doing interval and cardio work for horses, especially as it is non weight bearing, so it looks after their legs. I could see a queue of Eventers heading off there now as part of their training.
Every horse at Limitless Racing has a fitness plan, with daily work on the Aqua-Ciser, walker, fast or slow work on the track and is turned out in one of the yards for a couple of hours each. Tim knows every horse by sight, by name and knows where it is at in its training. This is incredible considering there are at least 66 horses in the racing yard, and every week 20-30 are turned over and replaced. He also knows the quirks of each horse and will ride every horse at least once each week so that he can feel exactly where it is at.
The Limitless team is quite large with 21 staff manning the three farms. Racing has 14 staff including 5 riders, who help Tim with the trackwork which he supervises and rides himself.
All three Limitless farms are immaculate, the lawns are trimmed and the edges neat and tidy. They all have the same look and feel. Also his staff are all friendly, welcoming and professional, there is an amazing vibe at Limitless and that comes from Tim.
After watching some fast trackwork we headed up the road to Tim’s home and heart, Limitless Eventing. This is where his now much smaller Eventing team is based. Before his business plan and the evolution of Limitless Lodge, Tim was one of those Eventers you saw at every event riding 7 or 8 horses, he worked hard at training young horses to keep turning them over and always hoped he wouldn’t have to sell off that special horse to keep running.
Today, Tim has a smaller truck and can’t take more than 4 of his own horses to any competition. He has three horses that are real 4* prospects and he is always on the lookout for quality youngsters.
One of his stars is GV (Green Valley) Billy Elliot, Billy is a German Hannoverian imported by Olivia Bunn a few years ago. Tim purchased Billy earlier this year and since then has had top 10 finishes in 7 of 9 FEI starts including an impressive second in the CCI3* at Lakes and Craters only a few weeks ago.
Tim also has a very famous racehorse in his Eventing yard. Grand Armee won over $5.3 million on the track with 13 wins & 13 places from 31 starts. Surprisingly, Grand Armee didn’t come to Tim through his racing connections but through a clinic he was doing with Eventers, when the owner of Grand Armee offered him to Tim, to see if he could do something new after his racing career.
Grand Armee had an impressive career as a lower level Eventer, but was never quite able to get his head around flat work. He has since been retired from Eventing and now lives the quiet life as an occasional showjumper.
Grand Armee – racing superstar, retired eventer, part-time showjumper and Eventing Nation correspondent
I had a chat with Grand Armee in his paddock and despite his superstar status, he was able to take a few moments from his busy day, eating grass, to talk to Eventing Nation. His simple message was ‘more grass, more hay and I love the occasional scratch behind the ear.’ He was very impressed that Eventing Nation had traveled all the way from the USA to visit him, his dad Hennessy is from there.
The Eventing farm has everything an Eventer could want (apart from the Aqua-Ciser although that is only 5 minutes up the road), indoor arena, jumping and XC paddocks, lots of grass and a team of staff, to wait on the every need of the pampered ponies.
Finally we took a 15 minute drive to Limitless Spelling. Tim’s own spelling facility for racehorses has room for 54 horses at capacity and is run by his girlfriend Sophie’s family. Mum – Sonia, Dad – Paul and Daughter – Jess, run the rehab and resting yard that like the other two farms is immaculate and well organised.
I watched as Tim and Sonia organised the lists of horses to be managed by the two farriers who both turned up at the same time. We all know how hard it is to get one to turn up at all, let alone having two there together and then managing their egos. Personally, I would rather be riding trackwork on a 3 year old breaker, less chance of getting into trouble.
So Limitless Lodge is an empire in the making, funds a healthy career in Eventing and I know that in 20 years time, Tim won’t be trying to earn a humble living teaching kids to ride a 20 meter circle or riding horses nobody else wants to. He will still be getting up well before dawn and supervising operations at Limitless Lodge, hopefully having achieved his dream of wearing the Green and Gold and winning another Australian team Olympic Gold medal.
Thank you to Tim and the Team at Limitless Lodge for being gracious hosts during my visit.
Limitless Racing – barns, horse walker and Aqua-Ciser in background
Note: EN John and I decided that it would make more sense to convert my original author name (EventingSafety John) to “ESJ” to help avoid any confusion about us being one and the same. You can check out my EventingSafety blog here.
