Personal Best for Neville at World Equestrian Games

Today Boyd and Neville cantered into the stadium at the Kentucky Horse Park and under tremendous pressure gave the performance of their careers so far. With all eyes focused on them they posted a double clear show jumping round in the final phase of the Three-Day Eventing Championships at the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games. The first of the Americans to enter the arena, they were the ones the home crowd had been waiting for and the entire stadium shook with thunderous applause as horse and rider crossed the finish line, Boyd punching the air triumphantly.
Buck and Reggie also cantered around in good form, but Phillip and Woodburn had the bad luck to bring a rail down in the final line, adding four faults to the team score. When Mandiba refused the gate jump and then knocked it down when he did jump it, the US team was solidly out of the medals in fourth place; only the unlikely occurrence of William Fox-Pitt leveling the course would have opened the door for the Americans to make the top three again, and he wasn’t about to let that happen! So the Brits took the gold, a young and very excited Canadian team took silver, and New Zealand made the long trip to the USA worthwhile by taking home the bronze.

Team USA: L-R, Karen O'Connor, Boyd Martin, Buck Davidson and Phillip Dutton

Thrilled with his personal result and his first opportunity riding on a team, Boyd says, “Neville has outdone himself; this is his best four-star score of his career. We had a great weekend and it’s been a wonderful experience that I’ll never forget. As far as the team, things didn’t go our way but even though it’s disappointing, it’s not heartbreaking. Everyone rode their guts out to the best of their abilities and things just didn’t turn out the way we wanted them to.”

Boyd with Jane Beshear and KY Governor Steve Beshear

With the sun setting on the eventing championships Boyd and his family and friends will have a good party and then it’s back to work. Next weekend Boyd will compete a group of horses at the Maryland Horse Trials, including his WEG reserve horse Remington XXV, owned by Ron and Densey Juvonen, in the intermediate horse trials.

After heading back to the green pastures of Pennsylvania Neville will have a month of rest and relaxation while Boyd regroups and plans for the future. He says, “Neville’s still a young horse and has a lot ahead of him."

Double Clear Cross-Country at the World Equestrian Games!

Boyd and Neville took no prisoners as the trailblazers for the US Eventing team at the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games today. They galloped around all the direct routes clear and in the time, laying down a good foundation for the team - and Boyd even gave Neville a big hug after he cleared that giant water complex - but luckily didn't fall on his head! Karen, Phillip and Becky posted clear rounds as well, though Buck had an unfortunate run-out at the sunken road - fortunately the team could drop one score and since it was a rough day for many competitors, with three solid rounds team USA moved up to second position behind Great Britain and just ahead of Canada. Becky and Comet put in a textbook performance to stand in the silver medal position individually going into Sunday's show jumping.

After his ride, Boyd said, "Neville was full of life and ran very well today. It wasn't the smoothest round ever but he showed toughness and determination to go clear and in the time at our first WEG. It was good going out first because I could take the direct route to every fence. It was definitely a bigger course than I've jumped before!"

Boyd spoke with the US team's show jumping coach Katie Prudent to develop a game plan for the final phase of the event tomorrow. He plans to school Neville on the flat and give him a short jump school in the morning to loosen him up and get him balanced after galloping around today, and hopefully jump a clear round in the afternoon.

Commenting on the atmosphere of riding in front of the more than 50,000 spectators that packed the Kentucky Horse Park today, Boyd said, "Riding in front of literally tens of thousands of people yelling and screaming all around is something I've never experiences before. It was an intense experience."

Both Boyd and Silva's parents and other friends and family are visiting and he added, "Now we've got the Australians and Germans and Americans all together and we plan to have a good celebration tonight!"

-Amber Heintzberger

Neville and Boyd in Dressage at the WEG

I was relatively happy with Neville’s performance in the dressage today. He warmed up beautifully in the preparations for the test; I also gave him a light ride at 7am and was quite happy with the way he went. Neville was relaxed in the warm-up

The cheering section

We went into the test and unfortunately when the US crowd applauded Neville got excited before the test. He was very, very tense and anxious but to his credit he went in and did a fairly good test.
His trot work was was a bit disappointing – tense – but he made up for it with beautiful canter work and scored a personal best in the four-star test with a 49.

We anticipated that he’d be tense so Oded and Captain Phillips told me to go in rising trot around the ring to keep his back soft; that seemed to work until the applause but I have to give him credit, he’s born and bred for racing and here he is at the WEG trying to be a dressage horse and finds it a bit tough.

-Boyd