Congratulations to the Sylvester Family on Joining the Neville Bardos Syndicate. Only 2 Shares Left!

Photo of Boyd and Neville (Shannon Brinkman for the USEF)

Congratulations and thanks to Spike and Jeanne Sylvester for buying the 8th share in the Neville Bardos syndicate! Their daughter Erin has been a student of mine for the past couple of years and Silva and I have both enjoy training one of America’s most exciting up and coming riders. I think it’s a wonderful gesture that Spike and Jeanne came on board and bought a piece of one of Erin’s future rivals, which might make for some busy cheering moments at future four-star events.

Erin Sylvester (Mike McNally Photo)

A quick reminder: there are only two shares remaining in the syndicate. If anyone out there is interested in joining and being a part of one of the best event horses in the world, there’s still time to get on board. The shares are $15k apiece and Neville Bardos is aiming for and entered in the biggest and best three-star events in America: Red Hills, The Fork and Jersey Fresh, before heading to England later this year to compete against the world’s best at the Burghley Horse Trials CCI4*.

EVENTING WINTER/SPRING COMPETITION CALENDAR

The following schedule is subject to change!

Aiken January 20th - End March, 2011

Jan 29 - 30 Pinetop

Feb 2 - Full Gallop 

Feb 5 - Sporting Days

Feb 9 - Full Gallop

Feb 12 - 13 Pinetop

Feb 18 - 20 Paradise

Feb 25 - 27 Pinetop

March 4 - 6 Sporting Days

March 10 - 13 Red Hills

March 12 - 13 Full Gallop

March 19 - 20 Pine Top

March 24 - 27 Poplar Place 

March 25 - 27 Southern Pines

April 2 - 3 Morven Park

April 6 - 10 The Fork

April 16 - 17 Plantation

April 22 - 24 Fair Hill

April 21 - 25 Badminton

May 7-8 MCTA

May 11 - 15 Jersey Fresh

WEG 2010 Photo Credits Lisa Thomas

New horse for Silva

I would like to welcome Faye Woolf's 6-year-old Dutch warmblood gelding Aesthete, known as "Stately", into my group of competition horses. Stately is a very nice young horse by Trento B out of a Gribaldi (Tortilas' sire ) mare.

First of all I would to thank Faye for making this possible for me. Stately was very successful as a four-year-old with Karen Monk-Reilly riding him. Karen has done an amazing job at bringing this wonderful young horse along; they won the won the Markel/USEF National Young Horse Championship for four-year-olds with a score of 86.8%! Last year they finished 5th in the Championship for 5-year-olds with 81.6%.

Karen has let him him "be a horse" and did not pressure him too early, and Stately has an amazing mind and great personality. He not only has amazing physical ability but also amazing mental ability, the likes of which you cannot find very often in a horse.

I am very exited to have him in my group and I am looking forward to starting this season with such good horses!


Silva

Bienvenue Otis Barbotiere!

I’m very excited to say that we have a fantastic new addition to the team of event horses here: Otis Barbotiere arrived last night after a marathon trip from Europe. I found Otis in France late last year after going on a horse-hunting pilgrimage with my mate Peter Barry. Otis looks like a very talented, exciting and promising young horse. He also has a great pedigree: his sire is Quidam du Ravel, the most prolific jumping sire in France’s history.

Otis happens to have a few wonderful traits that I also associate with Neville Bardos: a glaring white eye, a big white blaze, and he's an avid wind sucker! They’ll make a good team, or partners in crime anyway. I want to thank the group of fantastic supporters that have come together to make this happen. The syndicate members include:

Steve Blauner, NY
Bonnie Stedt, NY
Ron and Densey Juvonen, PA
Nancy and David Hathaway, NY
Craig and Gloria Callen, NY
Kelly Morgan, MA
Kirk Henckels and Fernanda Kellogg, NY
Dr. Timothy Holekamp, MO

It's atrocious weather here in Pennsylvania today, so instead of turning Otis out in the field I decided to throw a saddle on him and hack him around the indoor for 45 minutes – with my helmet on! My plan is to send him to Aiken in a week and place him with Silva for a couple weeks of gentle dressage work to let my chief dressage trainer make the first assessment of what we need to be working on.

Once again, thanks to the fabulous group of people that has come together to help bring Otis to the Unites States for me to ride. I couldn't have done it without you and I'm looking forward to sharing many exciting times with all of you.

-Boyd

Dressage Horses Have Arrived in Aiken!

On Saturday morning at 3am we started our drive to Aiken with 10 horses. I was driving my trailer with five horses and my friend Anecia drove Boyd's trailer with another 5 horses. My working student Devon drove in the truck with Anecea and Amy Heron, a student and friend of mine, drove in he truck with me. Devon's mum Sandy was also behind us and drove Devon's car to Aiken, so we had quite the caravan going down the road!

We had a great and very easy trip: no dramas on the way, which is very unlike me!

We arrived in Aiken at Black Forest Farm at 3pm. The sun was out and it was 60 degrees. It felt soooo good to see the sun and not to be freezing for once! The farm is beautiful and all the people are very nice and welcoming.
On Sunday we took everybody for a hack. All of the horses are so happy too see the sun and be outside of the indoor arena back home in Pennsylvania.

Anecia, Amy and Sandy are now driving Boyd's trailer back to PA and then Lillian, Sara ,and Caitlin are driving the event horses down at the end of the week.

Silva

Show Jumping Boot Camp for Remington

Today Remington XXV, otherwise known as the "Hanoverian Hurricane", headed down to the Mecca of the show jumping world, Wellington, Florida. He'll spend three weeks in the sunshine in show jumping boot camp with the US eventing team's show jumping coach Katie Prudent. Boyd will head down for the third week of training after Katie has unlocked all of Remi's secrets and teach Boyd how to bring out Remi's best.

Katie advising Boyd (on Neville Bardos) before Show Jumping at the 2010 American Eventing Championships and WEG selection trials

It was the show jumping phase that caught Boyd and Remi, owned by Ron and Densey Juvonen, out at the Pau CCI4* in France last fall, costing them the win at their first European four-star, and Boyd is doing everything he can to ensure that all the bases are covered in preparing for this very essential phase of the three-day event.

Photo from 2010 Pau CCI4* courtesy Kirsten Selvig

After the three weeks in Florida Remi will head to Aiken, SC where Boyd and Silva are based for the winter and begin preparing for the Rolex Kentucky CCI4* in April where all this hard work will be put to the test.

Sea Lord SOLD!!!

Today was a very sad day for me: my partner and friend Sea Lord was sold today to Charish Campbell from Easton, MD. Even though I am very sad , I am very, very happy for Charish to have such a wonderful horse!

Sea Lord, known affectionately around the barn as Big Bird, has been such a joy for me over the years. He came to me about 4 years ago after Boyd and Phillip were trying to make him into a event horse. Big Bird did not want to be a eventer but he always loved dressage. He is a incredible dressage horse with amazing movement and an amazing mind, especially since he is a Thoroughbred.

Big Bird has been very, very loyal and honest to me right from the beginning. He tried 110% for me every day and we had a lot of success up to intermediaire 1. He now is schooling all the Grand Prix movements and I was planning on showing him in Grand Prix this season.

Big Bird was owned by Shannon Stimson and her husband Joe. Shannon and Joe have been very good to me over the years. Big Bird came to me to be sold in the first place, but when I worked out what an amazing horse he is Shannon and Joe supported me and let us go on for four years. We had a lot of fun together and Shannon and Joe enjoyed watching us go up the levels and did anything they could to help us in any way.

Now it came time to sell him and I cannot thank Shannon and Joe enough for all of their support over the past 4 years and for letting me train and show such a wonderful horse. I feel very lucky that I was able to ride him and train him to what he is now!!!

It was very important for me that Big Bird will go to the best home possible. This horse means a lot to me and he deserves to be treated like a king. That's why I thought of Charish: I have known her for a few years now, I have had her horses in my barn for training and I have been teaching her for a while. I know that Charish cares for her horses very much and she will do anything to make them as happy as possible. She is an FEI rider and I knew that Big Bird and she would get along great. Charish also has some very nice horses for sale and runs a beautiful barn in MD.

I am so happy that it worked out this way and I am excited to be a part of Charish and Big Bird's upcoming success together!

Silva