When Ondine D’Orleans first came to Liza Boyd’s barn, it immediately became clear that she was a character. Boyd would frequently call her previous trainer, Casey Anzalone, who knew the mare inside and out because she’d worked with her since her birth.

“The first month, I would call Casey, and she was like ‘Oh God, what now?’ ” said Boyd. “[I’d say,] ‘She’s great to ride, but everything in between has been a nightmare. She’s breaking down her stall, she paces, she weaves, she rears, she kicks, she bucks in the stall.’ ”

Boyd’s father, Jack Towell, founder of the family’s Finally Farm in Camden, South Carolina, lived next to the barn, and he would hear “Ondine’s” antics. When she got antsy, he’d come out in the wee hours of the morning to handwalk her in his bathrobe.

By working with Anzalone—and thanks to some trial and error of her own—Boyd figured out how to keep the 11-year-old Belgian Warmblood (Vigo D’Arsouilles—Coco Chanel Z, Carthago), co-owned by Neill Sites and Finally Farm, happy and settled.

Boyd and Ondine paired up midway through the Winter Equestrian Festival (Florida) in 2024, and in a way the mare became a successor to Boyd’s three-time Platinum Performance/USHJA International Hunter Derby Championships (Kentucky) winner Brunello.

“I had lovely horses that I did in the derbies for years after Brunello, but they were client-owned, or they had another job with kids or whatnot,” said Boyd. “So it’s really fun to have [my] own one again. My dad said to me last year, ‘You’re getting a little old. You need one last good one.’ And I said ‘No, you’re getting old, Jack.’ I’m 45—I hopefully have some more years.

“I know what he meant,” she continued. “Not only is she mine, but she’s the family horse. She’s like Brunello was to our family. My girls love coming to watch her go. [My daughter] Adeline is a typical 10-year-old; she’ll say, ‘Mom, you’re good again.’ ”

Boyd and Ondine hit the ground running with a 3’6” green hunter championship in their first show out. The mare turned heads at last year’s derby finals when she placed second out of 91 in the classic round, then solidified her spot in the spotlight when she won the $150,000 USHJA/WHCR Peter Wetherill Palm Beach Hunter Spectacular (Florida) during Week 6 of this year’s WEF, capturing her first USHJA international hunter derby win three weeks later.

We caught up with Boyd and Ondine to find out what the mare is like outside the show ring.

• Boyd admitted that she wasn’t convinced the first time that Anzalone said that Ondine likes a certain feng shui in her stall, but now she’s a believer. Her haynet has to be below her fan, and her buckets have to be close by so that she can dunk her hay (she likes to stick her head in her water up to her jowl).

”She’s actually really messy and dirty,” said Boyd. “She’s not like a girly girl. She would be a total tomboy.”

• Another thing that helped Ondine settle into her stall? A new neighbor, none other than Brunello, who moved right across the aisle from Ondine when they’re at home in Camden.

“He used to throw fits in his stall too,” said Boyd. “I don’t know if he had a talk with her, but then all of a sudden, the behavior completely changed. Once we got the feng shui in the stall in that way, and we got him across from her, I think he was like, ‘Get over yourself. You’re not the queen here.’ ”

But with Brunello retired—he’s 27—he wasn’t heading on the road with Ondine, and when she’d go to horse shows the team was starting all over again. They finally found a new neighbor and stall that would make her comfortable without Brunello while showing in Aiken, South Carolina, where they compete frequently. But then that horse colicked and died, sending them back to square one with Ondine amidst their grief over losing the horse.

Finally former barn manager Randi Button figured out a key to the problem: Ondine was, at least in part, wanting attention from Boyd or Towell when she was fussy in her stall. That meant Boyd had to stop paying attention to her when she paced or kicked and let Button or the grooms take care of it.

“Randi was probably the one that really fixed her, because Randi said, ‘Stop treating her like she’s made of glass. You and Jack need to stay away from her stall, and it’s fine,’ ” Boyd recalled.

• Ondine eats senior feed mixed with alfalfa pellets and Renew Gold as well as Platinum Performance GI and Platinum Performance Vitamin E. She’s also on Regumate and some holistic herbs to help with her “marish” moments.

• Boyd tries to keep Ondine from getting too engrained in an exact routine.

“When you get to a horse show, you might be showing at 5 o’clock, you might be showing at 8 o’clock,” she said. “She sort of works around my schedule. Sometimes she gets turned out in the morning, sometimes she’ll get ridden and then turned out all afternoon. It kind of depends on the weather.”

• To that end, Ondine doesn’t have one specific groom. Boyd worried that if she got too attached to one specific groom and that person got sick or couldn’t be there, Ondine would get unsettled.

“I always have [assistant rider] Olivia Murray at the ring with me,” she said. “She knows exactly where I want my saddle, for example. I think a lot of riders are like this; before a derby we get nervous. You’re nervous, and you’re a little snappier, and you want everything a little more particular, and she knows exactly, like, how to adjust my stirrups the way I show her for a derby, and my schooling area routine.”

• Co-owner Neill Sites, whom Boyd has known since she was a teenager, is an enthusiastic supporter, but she has bigger priorities than just winning.

“When we bought her, she’s like, ‘I have one rule: This has to be fun. You know, if it doesn’t go great here or there, we’re not going to get mad. We’re going to have fun,’ ” said Boyd. “That was so nice because when you have an owner like that, there’s zero pressure.”

• Body worker Cathy McEnroe works regularly with Ondine, doing a lot of lasering to keep the mare in top form.

“She calls her a laser junkie,” Boyd said. “When we first got her I said to Cathy, ‘Be careful. You know, she’s probably not going to let you do her stifles.’ And she would try to kick Cathy, and she was really particular. But now she’s like, ‘Bring it on.’ She loves it.”

• Despite Ondine’s particularity about many things, Boyd said in other ways she’s very straightforward and easy.

“I’ll take her out in hunt country by myself and a deer will jump by, and she couldn’t care less,” she said. “She’s very much like Brunello in that way. She’s very safe; she’s very sturdy. You could take her out in the woods on a cold day, and she’s awesome and super brave.”

• Ondine would rather spend time riding in a field than a ring, so Boyd tries to limit ring time as much as possible.

“We definitely try to switch it up between Olivia and myself,” said Boyd. “Olivia will do a really forward gallop in the field one day, and then the next day maybe a trail ride. Then one day I’ll do cavalettis or gymnastics in the ring.”

Hunter trainer Andrew Lustig, who has a background in dressage, often trains Boyd on Ondine. He’ll throw a leg over the mare as well.

“He’s so different from Olivia and I,” Boyd said. “I think she’s like ‘Whoa, what’s he doing? He’s making me do all this lateral work and fancy dressage work.’ I think she really gets a kick out of him.”

• Lustig regularly reminds Boyd that there’s always room for improvement.

“I used to send him the videos, but now he looks them up,” she said. “The first week we got down [to the 2025 Winter Equestrian Festival] I was so excited. I was like, ‘She got an 89!’—and he’ll list all the things I did wrong. Not in a bad way, but it’s like he just wants us to keep improving.”

Lustig’s background in dressage has made Boyd even more cognizant of making sure the mare has good self-carriage and is using her hind end, even when they’re having an easy day.

“Even on days we only trot, it’s quality over quantity: lengthening, shortening, stretching,” she said.

• Boyd called an animal communicator about Ondine last year, who told her that that mare keeps an eye on all the other horses.

“She worries about everybody in the barn, and if there’s a sick horse or a worried horse, she’s very attuned to it,” she said. “She’s the mother hen; she’s taking care of everybody.”