Tuesday, May 24, 2011

New Attwood Equestrian Surfaces Arena for Boyd and Silva

Boyd has a few things to say about the new arena that Attwood Equestrian Surfaces has just completed at his and Silva's new facilities in Cochranville, PA:

Silva’s dressage operation has completely moved to our new farm in Cochranville, PA, a beautiful piece of property with 18 stalls and plenty of turn out. Her entourage of dressage horses have had a huge improvement to their training facility with a new arena by Attwood Equestrian Surfaces.

We are both very excited to be riding on what we think is actually the best footing out there for dressage and event horses. Attwood Equestrian Services have just completed a 60 x 20 meter dressage court using their fantastic new synthetic surface: a polymer coated sand which doesn’t require any watering and it’s an amazing surface that almost has a memory for when the horse’s foot presses down on the surface that it bounces back up completely, eliminating any concussion sustained through the vigorous training of our top level horses.

One of the scariest and most important parts of the footing is the grooming needed every couple of days – both Silva and I have given the fence around the arena a couple of good bumps with the tractor!

If anyone is interested in checking out this footing please don’t hesitate to stop by and have a look at our place in Cochranville or ring Edwin Barron at Attwood Equestrian: 714-258-6859

-Boyd

About Attwood Equestrian Surfaces:

Since 1992 Attwood Equestrian Surfaces has been at the forefront of footing development. We are the original manufacturer of polymer- coated, dust-free footing in the USA. Our footings are engineered from meticulously selected sand, blended with micro poly fibers and coated with a visco-elastic polymer.
Attwood Equestrian Surfaces has been manufacturing and installing polymer-coated riding surfaces for more than twenty years. Using the latest in technological advances and continuous innovations, we remain at the forefront of footing development. Our products are Pinnacle, Ameritrack and GGT.

June 19th The CCTA Challenge Continues!

The CCTChallenge begins its’ 2011 Combined Test Challenge series at
Humphrey’s Point Farm; Rock Hall, MD and announces its’ FREE Rider’s Incentive Program with

the 1st of 2 raffles of the season for 4 clinic positions for
the upcoming "Boyd Martin /Father’s Day Clinic / Cookout at the Shore"!

(See Attachments for the FREE Boyd Martin Clinic Entries
and details of the Incentive Program ).

The Challenge is only accepting 24 riders for each Combined Test Challenge!
Clinic Registration & Prizelist Email CCTChallenge@gmail.com

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Virginia Horse Trials

This weekend saw a great competition over three days at The Virginia Horse Center in Lexington, VA. Without a doubt, this is one of the coolest venues around for horse trials, with a massive indoor stadium for the show jumping. I competed there with five younger horses that all did well:

Charla, (pictured above), owned by Ron & Densey Juvonen, is getting back to her top form after placing 6th in the Open Intermediate. She is heading up to the Bromont CCI** in Quebec in a couple of weeks, and this run was perfect for her. This feisty little mare has all of the talent in the world and I feel she has a chance of going to the Pan American Games if all goes well.

Cagney Herself, owned by Bonnie Stedt, had her first Preliminary start and did not disappoint. She had the only clear show jumping round in the Preliminary Horse division, finishing her weekend in 4th place. Next up for Caggaz is a prelim in two weeks at Waradaca, then a well deserved spell of rest.

Crackerjack, owned by Colin Davidson and Lucy Boynton, also showed moments of brilliance in the Prelim. If I can keep Crackers relaxed, he is a big time horse. This little guy can move in the dressage, and he can seriously run and jump! We were unlucky to pick up my only rail this weekend; he finished 6th. Next stop for Crackers is the CCI* up in Bromont.

Summer Breeze W, owned by Anne Hennessey, has to be the most consistent horse I have ridden this year. She is still a little green and spooky, but she is showing signs of being a rock star for the future. She picked up 3rd place in the Training division at Virginia and next up for her is the Training division at Bromont, then a well deserved break at Anne's place in Vermont.

Partyboy, (pictured above), owned by Fernanda Kellogg & Nick Meyers, also had a successful weekend. The dressage judge was a bit harsh on Curtis, but a clear round in the show jumping saw him move up eight places. He finished 8th overall. I have decided to leave him at Training level for a few more starts as he still feels green, but he is an exciting young horse that has got a great look about him.

The other awesome part of the weekend was seeing my working student/assistant rider Lillian Heard smash a quality field in the Prelim on her mare Ariel. She had a dressage score of 18 and looks to be in good form for Bromont. I am a little bit nervous that she might have me covered in the CCI*, so I am thinking of telling her that the organizers have changed the dressage tests at Bromont, just to put her off her game.

Boyd

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Horse Junkies United (from Ecogold) Reviews Our Training Videos!!

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

May 19, 2011 3:00 pm

Posted by Carrie under Product Reviews

1 Comment

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?

The Story of the Broken Wrist...from Eventing Nation...

FROM TODAY'S EVENTING NATION:

Today I want to relay a story that I hinted at briefly during Jersey but that now deserves a full explanation. To protect the identity of the story's subject, we will call him Boyd Martin. I can't relay the story with the same hilarity of Boyd telling it, but it is amazing nonetheless. I found Boyd with a cast on his lhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifeft wrist Thursday at Jersey, and I asked him what happened....

To read the rest of the story, go to EventingNation.com

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Land Rover USA Photos from Rolex KY CCI****

Our friends at Land Rover USA, sponsors of the US Eventing Team, have posted some candid shots on their Facebook Fan Page from the Rolex Kentucky three-day event photo shoot. Follow this link to see some fun shots of Boyd and a few other riders in the Land Rover slide show!