Boyd Martin and Master Frisky. Photo by Jenni Autry.
Boyd Martin regularly blogs on his website, which is great since it helps keep us in the know on the inner workings of an upper level operation. Boyd posted an update on his successful weekend at Fair Hill and even includes a tidbit about his great save aboard Welcome Shadow.
From Boyd:
Once again this year the Dutta Corporation Fair Hill International provided an unbelievable event. In my opinion it was one of the tougher cross-country courses in both the two and three-stars. Eric Bull and his team built a very impressive course that was both big and technical.
This year I’ve got a very impressive group of up and coming horses; all six horses that I rode on the weekend were brilliant. In the two-star I rode Gloria Callen’s Welcome Shadow and Denise Lahey and Pierre Colin’s SBF Cortez. Both of these horses were super green but were great in all three phases.
Shadow got a little bit nervous in the dressage and unfortunately I got unseated at a duck towards the end of the cross-country, which required me to do a loop to jump the last element; I didn’t think I crossed my tracks but they gave me a stop, unfortunately. Shadow came out Sunday and show jumped terrific, finishing her event in grand style with a clear round. I think I’ll do another two-star with her next year and keep her at intermediate until then to give her more confidence.
Cortez was did an unbelievable dressage test and he scored 43, which put him in 3rd place out of around 110 starters. He was also super around cross-country, picking up just a couple time penalties, then had a couple fences down in show jumping to finish 8th which was a big accomplishment considering he wa s up against such stiff competition. Toronto. Like Shadow, I’d like to keep him at intermediate until he does another two-star next year. Who knows, one of these two might be considered for the Pan-Am Games in Toronto.
You can read the full blog post and learn more about Boyd and his owners’ plans for the horses going forward, as well as his closing thoughts on a great weekend in Maryland, by clicking here.
