a runout on cross country and still made the optimum time. She’s a lovely jumper too; in 17 rounds she hasn’t touched a rail. But while she’s very talented, she’s a redhead—I don’t know if Boyd’s been thrown off any of his horses as often as Kyra! He used to be in the warmup and suddenly he’d be on the ground—fortunately she has mellowed over time.”
Young Horses in the Pipeline While the Turners don’t have a huge breed- ing operation, they did produce several horses through embryo transfer when they had horses with the Pollards. These include offspring from Kyra, On Cue and several other mares. “On Cue Too looks just like On Cue, and she just goes out in the paddock and does her own little dressage tests; it’s hilarious,” Chris says. “She’s going to be three. She’s by Rusticus. I have a few more here on the farm by Rusticus and Halimey. One is a little redhead who is five and for sale, and I have a half-Thoroughbred mare in foal to him this year.” Electra, a little gray mare, is Kyra’s daughter, through a
surrogate. “Boyd bought half of her as a three-year-old and then wanted to breed her, to calm her down. She’s got Kyra’s talent but hopefully she will be calmer. She will now go into training as a five-year-old. Mary Hazzard, who has bred horses for years, has the baby now and is bringing her up.”
Stallions Chris has two stallions in her breeding program. She doesn’t want to deal with collecting fresh cooled semen, so she strictly offers frozen. A few years ago she had a number of horses with event rider Michael Pollard who then retired from competing to focus on running a busi- ness. Under Michael, the stallion Halimey Go, a German-bred 2005 Trakehner by Askar AA out of Hamamelis Go, was the 2015 and 2016 USEA Stallion of the Year. Halimey competed to the Advanced level of eventing and is now in training with dressage rider Silva Martin, whose husband is Boyd. “I love Hal, he could do dressage or
Rusticus, a 2011 German approved Trakehner stallion by
the Thoroughbred Favoritas out of the Trakehner mare Rispe IV, also had a brief eventing career with Michael Pollard. He is now with rider/trainer John Michael Durr in North Carolina, competing in show jumping. Chris says she prefers to have someone else handle the
“As we all know, in horse sports there are a couple highs followed by many lows and Chris obviously loves the success, but handles it well when things don’t work out.”
stallions, and doesn’t plan to have another one in her barn. “I don’t really work that well with stallions— you have to be the alpha and I’m not that good at it,” she admits. “I can deal with Hal because he’s such a good boy but I’d never buy a stallion again—unless it was like Hal!”
Team Windurra After having horses with several upper- level riders that did not work out as she had hoped, Chris says that she is enjoying her partnership with the Martins. “Boyd makes it a lot of fun—it’s like being a kid again, like
my brother teasing me or something. Even after the runout at WEG with Thomas, we were having a beer and he was talk- ing about it—he wasn’t off hiding somewhere. It’s unusual to see him not happy. He is also very good with communi- cation: he keeps in touch with everybody—he’s lucky he can call people ‘mate’ and get away with it, because he can’t remember names—but he really knows how to keep every- body happy. He just gave a speech at the American Trakehner Association conven- tion and everyone loved it. I’ve never seen anybody work as hard as Boyd does, and he’s always sending videos and keeps you in the circle so you know what’s going on.” Boyd says he’s been lucky to be riding
eventing, but he’s earned his place to just do dressage, he’s so good at it,” Chris continues. “He’s so balanced. My daughter rode him for a while and did her first flying change with him. Silva’s going to take him to Aiken for the winter and we may sell him, but only if he goes to the right home. He doesn’t need to be gelded—he’s such a good boy—and I think he could go all the way up the levels of dressage. He’d be the perfect horse for a really talented kid who wants to focus on one horse.”
Halimey, a Trakehner stallion also owned by Christine, stands with Silva Martin who is focusing on his dressage training after a successful eventing career.
for Chris for the past three years. “I must say it’s been an absolute pleasure being one of her riders,” he says. “As we all know, in horse sports there are a couple highs followed by many lows and Chris obvi- ously loves the success, but handles it well when things don’t work out. I’ve been lucky enough to handle some of her sport horses and this year we had our best year ever with Tsetserleg going to the WEG and her two-star horse On Cue becom- ing Intermediate Horse of the Year. Chris has got a small breeding program in place, which I’m a small part of, recommending which stallion might suit which mare. It’s also been rewarding seeing how much her daughter Tommie is getting involved
in the horses and it’s a real team effort having her be a part of the horses they have in training.” Chris says she also thinks the new U.S. team coach, Erik
Duvander, who came to the U.S. after several years coaching the New Zealand Eventing Team, had a lot to do with Thomas coming up to the world-class level.
Warmbloods Today 39
Courtesy Silva Martin
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