Boyd & Silva Martin Training Videos – The Skinny on The Skinny

May 19, 2011 3:00 pm

Posted by Carrie under Product Reviews

There's something sexy about a man, his cats and his hooters t-shirt. (Not.)

If you are an eventer, you know who Boyd Martin is. If you don’t, there is something seriously wrong with you. I would even venture in saying that the Dressage and H/J crowd knows who is he. The dressage crowd definitely knows his wife, Silva. Together, they make up Windurra LLC which can be found at www.boydandsilvamartin.com. I had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing Boyd at Rolex Kentucky at the end of April where he answered some questions for an ECOGOLD Q&A. And yes, I brought up the cats and the Hooters t-shirt. For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, check it out ->

Here is Boyd’s bio as it appears on his website:

Date of Birth: August 20, 1979
Qualifications: NCIS Level 1 Accredited Coach, Horse Mastership Certificate at Kurri Tase. Graduate “A” Pony Clubber

Australian native Boyd Martin, 31, relocated to the United States in 2007 to pursue his dreams of international eventing competition. He and his wife Silva, a Grand Prix dressage rider who is originally from Germany and now rides for the USA, operate Windurra USA out of Phillip Dutton’s True Prospect Farm. Now riding for the United States, Boyd, who has dual citizenship, was the top-finishing American individual and a member of the 4th-placed US Eventing Team at the 2010 Alltech World Equestrian Games in Lexington, Kentucky.

Recently, Boyd and Silva have put out a series of training videos. These videos attempt to provide all us amateur riders with insight into Boyd and Silva’s successful training techniques and competition methods. Basically, tips and techniques from some of the best of the best!

The videos are all posted through The Martins’ website – which I think is an absolutely fantastic way to use Social Media powers and is very 2011. The first video I watched was titled “Schooling and Training the Narrow Fence.” Here are my thoughts about the video, in no particular order:

When you spend 15 minutes watching a cute horse and a cute rider, you wished the videos were longer.
The video provides very detailed step by step instruction on introducing the pre-training (novice in the U.S) and training horses to be confident jumping skinnies.
Boyd talks us through what he is doing while riding through the exercise himself. Something I think is pretty cool.
He spends a lot of time really making sure that his horse fully understands each part of the process before moving on to the next step. I liked seeing him being able to understand why/how his horse was reacting to each question that he was being presented.
Focus! Focus! Focus! (The horse.)
He also makes fun of himself when things do not go as planned.

: Boyd and Remington at 2011 Rolex Kentucky, photo by Calina

My favourite tip, related to your horse’s stride on the approach. Boyd insists on having your horse approach with a short, bouncy, connected, stadium jumping canter in order to give him enough time to focus and understand the question. How true that is. I can remember getting over excited on the approach to a skinny because of a good xc ride I was having aaaaand didn’t set it up properly aaaaand ended up with the Big E. My second favourite tip…well, you’ll just have to watch the video yourself!

While people riding in the upper levels could learn a tip or two from Boyd, I find that this video would be 100% beneficial to you - as a rider – if you have never ridden skinnies before and are starting to school your horse through them.

Thanks for the tips Boyd! The videos can be purchased for your viewing pleasure here or by clicking on the image below this post:

http://www.boydandsilvamartin.com/Pages/boyd/TrainingVideos.html

Has anyone else watched this video?! Did it help you out?