Southern Pines Horse Trials II Comments from Boyd

Boyd rode seven horses at the Southern Pines Horse Trials II this past weekend. Here's an update:

I rode seven horses ranging from my Kentucky hopefuls Neville Bardos and Rock on Rose in the advanced down to two prelim horses Minotaure du Passoir and King Dingaling and Muggle, Charla and Ringwood Murphy in the training at Southern Pines this past weekend.

Unfortunately Remington was a late scratch from the event after he pulled up stiff and sore after his final jump school leading up to his run at Southern Pines. It looks like he might have a twist or a sprain and so the Juvonens and I are playing it safe at the moment and so we decided not to run him until he’s a hundred per cent fit.

It wasn’t my greatest weekend with my advanced horses: both Neville and Lusty have been training great at home and are very fit and fired up for Kentucky next month. Unfortunately Lusty got fired up for dressage and had moments where the tension got the best of her, but there were some dazzling moments where she scored 8’s and 9’s. I think as we get closer to KY she should settle down and relax. The rest of her weekend was faultless: she went beautifully around cross-country and had a sensational show jumping round.

Neville put in a good dressage test, nice and relaxed, and is putting in better and better work with every outing. I took him slow around the cross-country to look after him and I was probably a little bit casual towards the end of the course and stumbled going up a bank-one-stride arrowhead fence. He landed in a heap so I opted not to present him at part B of the complex because I didn’t want to risk a bad jump, so I gathered him up and re-presented him and jumped the combination perfectly on the second attempt. It was pretty heartbreaking to have only the second or third cross-country penalty of his life but deep down I’m not too concerned since I didn’t actually attempt the fence, even though on paper he there are 20 penalties.

I thought Neville put in an okay show jumping round, but he got a little excited and carried away towards the end of the round. I know this horse inside out though and I’m sure at The Fork we’ll see the best of him again.

All the young horses performed fantastic: the highlight was Ron and Densey Juvonen’s Charla, who won the training from go to whoa. The two prelim horses were faultless as well with King Dingaling coming third and Min second. King Dingaling is owned by Luke and Sarah Allen and is usually owned by my compatriot Sally McKechnie Lofting; I’ve got the job of riding him while Sally is pregnant with her first child and she’ll take the ride back after she punches out Junior Lofting.

It was a great event, one of the best Southern Pines advanced events that I’ve competed at, and much of that was thanks to the sponsorship by PRO, the Professional Riders Organization, a group of riders banded together with a mission to improve prize money and services to owners, with the ultimate goal of professionalism in our sport in this country.

I’m back in PA for a couple of weeks and it’s great to be home here in Unionville. All the horses traveled very well. The super green horses are heading to a schooling show this weekend, the advanced horses are going to The Fork in two weeks, and the rest of them are going to a horse trials at Plantation Field in three weeks.

-Boyd