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Full Marks to the Mid South Eventing and Dressage Association for bringing Boyd Martin in as Guest Speaker this year! After confusing my dates and missing out on Max Corcoran at the Area VIII Annual Meeting, I certainly wasn’t going to miss this. Although as a group we may have had a few years on the screaming, feverish hordes that attended the One Direction concert that I was forced to take my daughter to last autumn, Boyd was playing to a packed house in Cincinnati and the crowd was equally as excited and enthusiastic, we were putty in his hands! The morning session was devoted to Boyd’s background: what it takes to rise from riding around the trails in your back yard in Australia to representing your country at the very highest level, overcoming unthinkable loss along the way. Illustrated with slides and peppered with amusing anecdotes, Boyd is a natural storyteller and kept everyone enthralled. With his typical easy, quick Aussie wit and no-nonsense attitude I don’t think any of us realised how much we were all learning at the same time as we were listening but therein lies the lessons! The afternoon session, which we’ll cover in Part Two, was more of an open forum discussing general training and all manner of topics in a question and answer form.
The Very Beginning
Boyd started at the very beginning, regaling us with tales of his first pony, Willy, short for Willy Do It in Australia. Boyd explained that he grew up in a neighbourhood north of Sydney where most people had a couple or so acres of back yard and kept a horse. His parents were both sporty, former Winter Olympians in fact, and encouraged him to explore everything he was interested in, not just horses. “This was a good thing for me because I was a terrible student!” For a long time Boyd held the running record in New South Wales Schools for 1500 meters . It’s clear immediately that an eventer’s upbringing down under is different to that of say, a hunter jumper in the US, or a dressage rider in Germany, “I was a wild young lad and pretty much into all sports. The training for Australia for riders was pretty informal, I can’t remember having that many lessons as a young kid; I do remember running off the school bus in the afternoon and dashing down, throwing the saddle on the pony and meeting all my friends out on the street where we’d race around all the fire trails in the National Park that was close by. We’d go to Pony Club every Saturday; we’d start at 8am and it was about an hour’s ride to get there and you’d meet people along the way, and you did everything there- mounted games, jumping, barrel racing.” and his career in eventing got off to a somewhat inauspicious start, “My first actual horse trial didn’t go so well – I fell off twice on the cross-country and unfortunately the second fall was at the water jump and Willy decided to run back to the trailer and eat some hay so I had an approximately fifteen minute run on foot to go and get him but I hopped on him, rode him all the way back again and continued. I also fell off in the show-jumping so I had three falls in total, a rough dressage, oh and a stop cross country too which all added up to about 386 penalties and that was my eventing debut but I wasn’t too disappointed to be honest, it was a great day out and quite a good effort I thought!”
Boyd still wears his school ‘footie’ jersey when riding cross country today
By about age 16 Boyd was really starting to “get a kick out of the eventing” and had graduated to a horse called Lenny, a “hell of a good jumper” that Boyd had found advertised for sale for $1,200 on a bulletin board in a smoothie shop. In a picture of him jumping Lenny Boyd is wearing the same cross country jersey he wears today, “it was actually my school footie jersey; it was compulsory at school to play rugby union. I was alright, I was out on the wing, but I chose to wear the football jersey while I was riding cross country and I have to get my mum to go down to the school shop and send me a few more over every now and then.”
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Moving up the levels
On finishing High School with “pretty disastrous scores, it was obvious I wasn’t going to be a brain surgeon!” Boyd embarked on an eight year apprenticeship of sorts that would change his life, checking in at the New South Wales Equestrian Centre as a working pupil for Heath Ryan,
“There were sixteen rooms in the bunk house and it wasn’t unlike a portable shed; the walls in the rooms were paper thin, it wouldn’t have been the most hygienic place in the world and when the wind blew you could practically see the roof lift off at the corners! Heath was a good guy though, he had a huge operation and really enjoyed getting the next wave of Australia’s future champions up and running. I joined about fifteen other teenagers, there were probably 250 horses on the farm and he ran a massive operation; it was seven days a week, starting every day at 6:30 am and finishing when we finished, sometimes eight, nine or ten o’clock at night. We did everything – trained young horses, bred horses, jumped horses, got a cross country lesson from Heath which could be terrifying! It was borderline madness, almost lunacy, but I really thrived on that intensity. We’d load up the big truck on a Friday night, the horse trial might be ten hours away but you’d never leave the day before, you’d drive through the night and get there at 6am the morning of the event. There was no stabling so you had to build your own yards when you got there, certainly there was never any straw or shavings, the horses just stood on the grass, and there were no hotels, you’d camp out for the weekend and build a big fire.”
Heath was an enormous influence in Boyd’s life, “the first time in my life that I’d really had a coach or a mentor and he was brilliant too, a masterful trainer of horses and the softest rider I’d ever seen and a genius. He taught me work ethic and so much more; a lot of people quit because it was such hard work but the ones that hung in there ended up being quite successful – if you look at a lot of the big names in Australia they’ve definitely been touched by this fellow.”
By this time Lenny had been sold and swapped for The Flying Doctor, an eleven year old that had yet to compete in an event, “When I tried him he galloped up to a jump, screeched to a halt and I went flying over The Flying Doctor’s head, and he just stood there. My father recognised a horse with good intentions and said he thought we should buy him because he didn’t run away, and so we did! Two years later Boyd and the Doctor tackled their first four star together at Adelaide and finished in 5th place, “Looking back on it now I really didn’t have much idea of what I was doing. It was a monstrous course and I still remember people pacing out the distance between jumps and I was copying them but I had no idea what each step meant, I was just trying to fit in!” However, it was a definite turning point in his life, “Right from that moment I knew without doubt that eventing was the sport for me”.
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True Blue Toozac and a CCI****win
Luckily for the world of eventing a two-month stint breaking horses in Japan didn’t stick (cue lots more funny stories) and Boyd returned to Australia, and in amongst a bunch of horses that he was producing and selling he found True Blue Toozac, “arguably the nicest horse I ever had. I didn’t realise it at the time but I realise it now. I ended up selling him and it was one of the biggest mistakes of my life; I wish I’d actually brought him to America because he was a phenomenal horse. ” An Australian thoroughbred who refused to be caught in the field he was to be the horse who really put Boyd on the map, winning him his first CCI**** at Adelaide in 2003, the very last international long-format three-day event and a high profile selection trials for the 2004 Olympics. Sadly the next year Boyd ran Toozac in the final selection trials against his better judgement; gut feeling told him his horse wasn’t 100% right but the pressure to perform was too hard to resist and after a “dumb fall” on course, “I realised that my horse was tiring too much and too early and I was pushing him too hard and he actually bowed a tendon; it was a steep learning curve for me.” Boyd regrets selling him to this day; at the time he thought the tendon would never stand up to eventing but Toozac has been competing for ten years with a young rider! However, as he references him a couple of times later it’s clear the lessons learned have stuck with him to this day.
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The Move to the US: True Prospect Farm and True Love
Although Boyd was making a nice living at this point and competing at a high level in the Southern Hemisphere he had never competed in an Olympics or World Championships and began to feel restless, “The thing that really inspired me was riding around four stars, and it’s still what motivates me. I had a young horse and I put him on a cargo plane and we came to the US.” Ying Yang Yo and Boyd arrived by way of a friend’s recommendation at Phillip Dutton’s True Prospect Farm to prepare for the Kentucky Three Day Event. With plenty of spare time on his hands Boyd mucked in, and out, around the barn making himself invaluable, and Phillip in turn started helping him with Ying Yang Yo. Despite being “young and green at Kentucky, he rocked around pretty well” and more importantly Boyd was smitten with the US, and Phillip told Boyd if he returned there would be a proper job waiting for him.
It was around about this time that he also happened to become smitten with a beautiful, young German dressage rider, Silva, who he would later of course persuade to become his wife. “For any young lads here striving to be a great event rider – having a dressage rider as a wife or girlfriend is a very handy thing!” After their wedding in 2006 Boyd moved to the US to work with Phillip Dutton as he already had dual citizenship and figured it would be no problem for his wife to do the same; in actuality it took a further four months before Silva was able to complete the necessary paperwork and join him.
In the beginning both Silva and Boyd worked for Phillip, mucking stalls as well as riding, “it wasn’t very glamorous” but again a wonderful learning experience. “Phillip is a very focused guy. Where Heath is trying to do everything – breed horses, do dressage, teach, go eventing, break babies….what I admire about Phillip is he’s very, very focused. All he wants to do is train top level horses. His training and fitness programme is much more scientific, and he notices all the tiny details which probably at the time was good for me. I worked as hard as I could for Phillip and in return he helped me more than I could ever believe, really fine-tuning me as a rider, really becoming more technical and focused.” After a disappointing run at the New Jersey Fresh CCI*** on Neville, the True Prospect Farm team ruled at Fair Hill that year with Phillip filling the 1st and 3rd places, and Boyd slotting into 2nd and 4th. It was then that Boyd decided to change nationality to ride for the US, “It was at about this time that I noticed that America was a long, long way from Australia, and I also realised that this was the place that I was going to live forever. I decided to change my nationality to support the sport here and the people who are good enough to give me horses to ride here, and also my mother had been an American representative.”
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Representing the USA
An impressive third place finish at Rolex in 2010 led to selection for the US Team at the World Equestrian Games at the Kentucky Horse Park, “That was a huge, huge event and one of my grandest memories. I was on by far the worst dressage horse in the team but the selectors and the coaches felt that he was a strong cross country horse and a good show-jumper. He was the Mr Reliable who needed to finish pretty close to his dressage score.” Boyd duly jumped clear and fast cross country, and left all the rails up on the third day, “much credit to Katie Prudent who sadly is not our coach anymore but she did a masterful job of telling me how to ride every stride of that show-jumping course.” Sadly a medal was out of reach that year but Boyd finished 10th individually on Neville, “I was happy because I don’t think I could have got any more out of him; he jogged one step in the extended walk in the dressage but that was basically the only moment I could have improved, and there’s not many events where you get everything perfect!”
Two years passed by at True Prospect Farm, “I loved it, I met great people and most importantly I was still learning a lot from Phillip and I felt like every day I was there I was picking up something new. Anyone who knows Phillip knows he doesn’t talk much, he can go a whole day without saying a word, but watching him, seeing how he operates, and like me he’s from a humble background and he’s figured out how to make a successful operation pay, it was all invaluable experience. He’s a real genius at picking out horses, brilliant at figuring out when they need to be moved on, very, very smart about dealing with people and owners, and he runs a really tight business which was a very good education for me. The point is that to really get good at this is a very long process; I’ve spent a lot of time around a lot of good people.”
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The Fire and Moving On
Boyd talked about the Memorial Day fire in some detail and it’s still very hard to hear, “the next day we had to get a tractor and drag the dead horses out of the wreckage of the barn, we had five horses in the New Bolton Clinic, all the gear that had been destroyed and I had to ring all my owners and deliver the news. It was a telling moment where I thought things couldn’t possibly get any worse in my life but luckily I didn’t really have any choice but to go on.” Although of course he has moved on he wonders if he’ll ever completely recover, “It still haunts me today, I’ll hear sirens and it reminds me of it, or I’ll see a horse that reminds me of a horse that died in the fire. There was $2million worth of damage all told and at the moment there’s about five insurance companies involved in it all fighting over who owes who what money and it’s something that’s dragging on longer and longer.”
With the help of the local and wider horsey community Boyd set up his own barn on a tight budget, and started trying to re-build his life but shortly after the fire the sudden death of his father, and then the death of his father-in-law were two more devastating blows. Meanwhile, Neville continued to improve and although Boyd wanted to write his competitive year off it was Phillip who urged him to aim tentatively for Burghley, “The horse was fantastic; I was worried that he wasn’t going to be fit enough and I was worried that his breathing might be affected so we went above and beyond to make sure Neville was super fit and that the burns in his throat weren’t going to affect him, and we went over there and through all the worst preparation and distraction that you could have imagined, he ended up coming good and finishing seventh. In hindsight it was a good distraction because it taught me that even when everything is going wrong you’ve got to push on and keep trying, keep going forward and sooner or later things will come good for you.”
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USEF Horse of the Year, and the London Olympics
The USEF capped off 2011 on a high note for Boyd by crowning Neville their Horse of the Year, “It was a nice warm feeling and it was also great because so many people helped get us through this with donations and emails and stuff like that, so it was nice to be able to recognise that, and quite a few of Neville’s ten owners were able to be there to accept the trophy.”
After the WEG Boyd had been looking to re-build his stable and after a reconnaissance trip to France, he managed to put together a syndicate to buy Otis Barbotierre. In 2012, after a third place finish at Rolex on his new, greener French horse, Boyd found himself flying to England for the summer with three horses named to the US Olympic Team long list – Otis, Neville and Remington, “Initially I was hoping Neville would be the horse because obviously I know him so well but he got to England and he was never quite himself.” After extensive exams on returning home to the US they have now diagnosed Neville with arthritis in the base of his neck, and with treatment he is 100%. Instead Otis was picked as Boyd’s mount for the Olympics and was chosen as the first to go. At that time of day on cross country when the grass would be dewy, slick and slippery, and with the hilly, twisty “go-kart” track Boyd selected substantial studs, “bigger than I’ve ever used before” and he’s sure these contributed to Otis twisting his ankle near the end. Despite the best efforts of the veterinary team that night, and Boyd the next morning “I tried every trick in the book, got his head down low and got him nice and loose!” Otis was sent to the holding box at the Final Vet Inspection where Boyd withdrew him, “that was a pretty dark ending to my Olympic Games, I cheered everyone else on in the show-jumping and then I went to the pub!”.
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Is it Boyd, is it the Aussie culture, is it a mixture of everything he’s been through that has shaped him? Boyd is remarkably philosophical and upbeat when he ponders the hardships he’s faced , the tragedies and the plain misfortune that dogs every rider,
“When it’s good it’s good, and when it’s bad it’s bad. If you’re a professional sportsperson I really don’t think you’ve got anything to complain about – there’s millions of people in the world that would laugh at you because you’re upset that your horse has got a bowed tendon if you consider it compared to their lives. It’s the nature of the beast. I really really enjoy training horses, I really really enjoy competing and I’m very, very fortunate that I’ve figured out a way of doing all that and making a living; I think I live a great life – I do what I want to do, I go where I want to go, I feel like I’ve got the ability to push on through disappointments and I enjoy it, I really enjoy every day. Sure, it’s not that glamorous when it’s pouring with rain and freezing cold and you’ve got fifteen horses to do dressage on, that can be pretty miserable but it’s something I wouldn’t change for anything. I’ve made lots of wrong decisions in my life but I’ve made a couple of right ones and that’s basically my story.”
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During the breaks, lunch and before he could leave to catch a flight back to Aiken, Boyd was mobbed for pictures and autographs for which he happily complied. The entire afternoon session was given over to questions and answers, and discussion during which Boyd didn’t shy away from anything and everything, no matter how inconsequential – “How did you keep your grey pony, Willy, clean?” to controversial, “Can you comment on Neville not being named to the Training Lists?” Check back soon for Part 2 to read much more; in the meantime a massive thank you to the MSEDA for seamless organisation and for being so friendly and welcoming, and for the most amazing door prizes – five $100 gift certificates from Boyd’s sponsor Smartpak just for starters. Sadly my lifelong run of bad luck in any kind of raffle/draw/lottery continues but the day was a roaring success regardless. Thank you again to MSEDA, Boyd and to you for reading. Please Go Eventing but come back later and read Part 2, you won’t want to miss it!
