Sara Lieser and Kat Netzler

Boyd Martin’s list of accomplishments is pretty impressive for any eventer, let alone one who just celebrated his 30th birthday. But a three-star win had alluded him until today, Oct. 18, in the Fair Hill CCI***, where he and Neville Bardos put a checkmark next to that accolade.

“I finally won one. I’ve won a one-star, a two-star and a four-star, but never a three-star. I’ve come second a number of times in Australia and America. It was eating away at me personally a little bit. I had a little bit of pressure on myself,” said Martin.

Hannah Burnett rode into the show jumping arena with a rail in hand, but she didn’t know that. Her focus was on attaining a clear, careful round with St. Barths. She was one fence away from achieving her goal when a missed distance to the last jump almost put her out of the ribbons completely.

“I was worried about getting too close to the last one, and so I went out a little bit too far,” explained an embarrassed Burnett.

After the final ground jury inspection this morning, Oct. 18, a group of 36 horses will show jump in the CCI** division, and 37 in the CCI***. The juries accepted every horse presented.

Three horses were voluntarily removed from the show jumping roster, however. In the CCI**, Scott Keach withdrew Vamor after being sent to the holding area, and in the three-star, Kelly List scratched Minstral after being held. Christian Eagles didn't present The Gingerbread Man in the three-star.

Boyd Martin made the best of bad conditions today in Elkton, Md., Oct. 17, and bounded up the standings from 16th to first place with the only double-clear round in the Dansko Fair Hill CCI*** aboard Neville Bardos (51.0).

Karen O’Connor prepared her horses for the Fair Hill CCI a bit differently than usual this year. She didn’t ride them.

But this tactic paid off surprisingly well with a big lead after dressage in the CCI*** aboard Mandiba. O’Connor scored 39.6 on a cold, wet Friday afternoon in Elkton, Md., Oct. 16, to go to the top of the leaderboard over Thursday’s leader, John Williams with Sweepea Dean (42.6), and Mara Dean aboard Nicki Henley (43.6).

Kim Keeton feels a bit more responsibility towards her mount Accolade than your average rider. She was literally there from the moment of his conception. “I was a vet student, and he was my first frozen semen experiment,” she said with a laugh.

Now that experiment has paid off with the Spalding Labs/USEA Young Event Horse 4-Year-Old East Coast Championship (84.65) over Buck Davidson on No More Rocks (80.43) and Leslie Law aboard Kalamata (80.38).

One rail separated the top six in the Fair Hill CCI***, but Amy Tryon never imagined her clean round in the sixth spot would catapult her into the lead with Coal Creek over Corinne Ashton on Dobbin and Will Coleman on Twizzel.

Tryon jumped Coal Creek early in the order because she also had Leyland in the top 10. She started to move up when fifth-placed Boyd Martin took three rails on Belmont II. Then Phillip Dutton had a surprising five rails down, which ended up dropping him and Bailey Wick from fourth place down to 10th.

The standings went topsy-turvy after three hours of Fair Hill CCI*** cross-country, but at the end of the day, Corinne Ashton moved up from fifth place to first with a double-clear round aboard Dobbin.

Will Coleman and Twizzel advanced one place into second with 2 time faults ahead of Amy Tryon and Leyland, who added just .8 to their dressage score.

But the shocker of the afternoon occurred when first-placed Leslie Law incurred three refusals aboard Fleeceworks Mystere du Val, and second-placed Kim Severson retired on Tipperary Liadhnan.

Great Britain’s Leslie Law has come away with the top ribbon in five of his last six starts with Fleeceworks Mystere du Val, so it was no surprise to see him atop the leaderboard after dressage at the Dansko Fair Hill CCI*** with a score of 43.5 on Oct. 17 in Elkton, Md.

But Kim Severson stalked him just .4 points behind with Tipperary Liadhnan, and Will Coleman wasn’t far off in third place aboard Twizzel (45.9). Amy Tryon grabbed fourth place with Coal Creek (47.0) over Corinne Ashton and Dobbin (47.2).

U.S. Equestrian Federation President David O’Connor stated that preliminary findings indicated that Tigger Too had ruptured his aorta in two places, and that his fall and subsequent death were the direct result of this rupture.

Tigger Too, who competed at the four-star level with O'Connor, fell at fence 28, the Lighthouse, with Lauren Kieffer on cross-country on May 10 in the Jersey Fresh CCI***. The 17-year-old Thoroughbred gelding passed away shortly after hitting the ground, and Kieffer escaped with no major injury.