Boyd Martin and Commando 3. Photo by Liz Crawley Photography.
An earthquake may have rocked the East Coast today, but everything was sunny in Aiken, South Carolina for the first day of competition in the Stable View $60,000 CCI4*-S. As many riders use the event as a precursor to the Defender Kentucky Three-Day Event, the schedule was stacked with big names, including Boyd Martin, Liz Halliday, and Will Coleman.
As you might have predicted, the end of day one resulted in “The Big Three” battling it out for the top slots. Amazingly enough, Yankee Creek Ranch’s Commando 3 (Connor 48 x R-Adelgunde, Amigo XX) and Boyd Martin beat the silky smooth Chin Tonic for first place after dressage with a score of 25.7. Will Coleman and Hyperion Stud’s Chin Tonic (Chin Champ x Wildera, Quinar Z) left the ring tied with Liz Halliday and The Monster Partnership’s and Ocala Horse Properties’ Cooley Quicksilver (Womanizer x Kylemore Crystal, Creggan Diamond) with a score of 26.5.
Commando 3’s dressage performance proved his best dressage test yet at the 4* level narrowly trumping his performance at the 2023 Carolina International by a tenth of a point. Boyd took the ride on Commando just last year, taking over from Sweden’s Louise Romeike.
Boyd Martin and Commando 3. Photo by Liz Crawley Photography.
“I’ve really been working hard with Silva on the dressage and I came out and performed a wonderful test today and I still really feel like there’s more improvements to be made, but he’s such an amazingly gifted horse. It’s pretty exciting to think of where he’s going to be in a year or two.”
As for Chin Tonic’s record, you could be excused for thinking you were looking at computer code, based on the number of 1s and 0s. Out of a total of 20 competitions, the talented 12-year-old Holsteiner has won eight. The dressage phase is usually his best phase, regularly scoring in the low 20s/high teens. Only the growth-minded Will Coleman could ever call a dressage test scoring 26.5 and earning a second place tie “one to flush down the toilet,” but you don’t become one of the best riders in the U.S. by accepting what you know wasn’t your greatest performance.
Will Coleman and Chin Tonic HS. Photo by Liz Crawley Photography.
“Well, we had a lot of mistakes. We just had a lot of errors, you know, just silly things. It’s just that kind of a test. Just to have an off day, you know that that can happen. Now he’s been so good recently, maybe we were kind of due for a little bit of a swing and a miss,” Will said. “I think the horse is in a good place. I’m just gonna flush this one down the toilet and look ahead to the next one. He feels great, but it is what it is sometimes. Sometimes you just don’t have your stuff when you get in the ring.”
Liz has already had a busy season with her large string of 4* and 5* horses, five in total. She has three out of the five competing in the Stable View 4* this weekend, Shanroe Cooley, Cooley Nutcracker, and Cooley Quicksilver. This weekend was Cooley Quicksilver’s time to shine ahead of his brothers, putting in a good dressage performance for the 13-year-old Irish Sport Horse, resulting in a score of 26.5, and a tie with Coleman.
The stadium course was designed by well-known designer Chris Barnard. Time allowed for the course was capped at 81 seconds. By the end of the phase 86 percent of the field was able to cross the timer within the time allowed. The triple combination at fence 10 proved to be particularly tricky, racking up a total of nine rails and two refusals.
However, it wasn’t an issue for any of our top three. Boyd and Commando 3 “flew” around the course. “He’s unbelievable. Just super careful and got a big scope to him. And he took up the course in great fashion and we’re very, very pleased.”
The 11-year-old Holsteiner is relatively new to Boyd, with 2024 being only their second competition season together. “We’re really starting to click and gel now. It’s really taken a year to get a partnership going, but now we’re definitely on the same page and we’re rockin’ and rollin.’ But he’s a horse of unbelievable quality. And I feel like we’re really in sync now.”
Show jumping was par for the course for Chin Tonic HS and Will. “He jumped well, it wasn’t overly impressive, but he did his job. He left the rails up and I think he’s in a fine place. All good.”
Liz Halliday and Cooley Quicksilver. Photo by Liz Crawley Photography.
Stable View is a popular event to prepare for the Defender Kentucky Three-Day Event. Will and Chin Tonic are entered in the 4*-S at the Defender Kentucky Three Day Event, as is Liz with Shanroe Cooley (owned by Ocala Horse Properties), Cooley Quicksilver (owned by The Monster Partnership and Ocala Horse Properties), and Deborah Palmer and Ocala Horse Properties’ Miks Master C. Boyd also has Commando 3 entered in the 4*, alongside Bonnie Stedt’s Miss Lulu Herself and the Annie Goodwin Syndicate’s Fedarman B.
Not only is this event one of the last runs before Kentucky, it’s also the first time the 4* cross country course has been designed by Helen West, after Captain Mark Phillips’ announcement of retirement (though he’s still got a few courses left on his roster for this season). While the Captain is acting as advisor to Helen this year, the course is mostly her creation. Optimum time for cross country is 6 minutes and 23 seconds. According to the Omnibus, riders should aim to maintain 570 meters per minute to conquer the 3500 meter course close to the optimum time.
According to Boyd, Helen didn’t pull her punches for her first 4* course at Stable View. “Helen West built a real course similar to what we’re going to experience at Kentucky with lots of coffins and a big brush and big jumps into the water and she’s done a top job. But she’s made a pretty good test. So my goal tomorrow would be to give the horses a good run. Make sure they jump all the fences well, and they’re nice and confident coming into Kentucky.”
While Helen was in charge of the 4*, Advanced, CCI2*, and Preliminary courses, Mogie Bearden-Muller designed the CCI3*, Intermediate, Modified, and Training courses. You can view the CCI4*-S track on CrossCountryApp here. The other course maps at Stable View can be viewed here.
Fun fact: We have four 4* pairs who managed to stay tied to the same person through both phases:
Will Coleman / Chin Tonic HS vs Liz Halliday / Cooley Quicksilver
Sydney Elliott / QC Diamantaire vs Colleen Loach / Vermont
Philip Dutton / Denim vs Will Coleman / Off the Record
Doug Payne / Camarillo vs Lucienne Bellissimo / Tremanton
Meanwhile, the Advanced division also got underway today, following the same schedule as the 4*. Allison Springer and Nancy Winter’s Connemara Sport Horse No May Moon (Catherston Dazzler x Ebony Moon, Mystic Replica) are leading the way on a score of 29.1, followed by Lindsay Traisnel and Patricia Pearce’s Bacyrouge (My Lord Carthago*HN x Lelia, Clyde de la Combe). In third place, we have Buck Davidson and Erroll Gobey (Cassini II x Ulla II, Contender) owned by Natalie Sandler, Cassie Segal, and Lisa Darden.
Tomorrow, some of the National and all the FEI divisions will tackle cross country. The Training, Modified, Intermediate, and Preliminary divisions will kick off their competition with dressage followed by show jumping, and will leave the start box on Sunday morning. Saturday and Sunday competition will be followed by a Gaze and Graze at the Pavilion from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Stable View Spring 2/3/4* and H.T. (Aiken, SC) [Website] [Entries] [Ride Times] [Volunteer] [Scoring]
