Many spectators did a double take on Saturday when they saw Boyd Martin galloping past, clad not in his usual navy blue cross-country attire, but a classic ketchup-and-mustard-colored combination.
      
“I’ve been riding a couple of Bruce Davidson’s horses,” Martin said, referring to Rock On Rose, who placed fourth in the CIC***. “It’s been good fun. I got to wear Bruce’s helmet cover from [the World Championships in Kentucky, which he won in] 1978.
      
“Rock On Rose is a new ride for me, and I felt the pressure with Big Brucey walking the courses with me and warming me up,” Martin added, laughing. “You don’t want to do anything wrong. He was chasing me on a golf cart the whole way around. I think I heard him yelling.”

Olympian Becky Holder, who placed fourth in the CCI** with Rejuvenate and fifth in the CIC*** with Courageous Comet, has long been an upper-level eventing fixture in the Midwest, but her tenure in Mendota Heights, Minn., is drawing to a close.
      
Holder’s husband Tom is a longtime Northwest Airlines employee, and after that company’s merger with Delta last year, Tom was offered a promotion based in Atlanta, Ga.
      
“He trained pilots in flight simulators and ran the handling of dangerous goods,” Becky explained. “If you wanted to ship acids next to a rhinoceros, he was your guy. Now he’s been going back and forth to Africa a lot lately. It’s a big, fun job for him now, but it’s been a bit of a rough spring. We’ve been on opposite sides of the world, and text messaging is our relationship.”
      
The Holders hope to move into their new property south of Atlanta by the end of July. The Palmetto, Ga., farm is located near Carl Bouckaert’s Chattahoochee Hills Farm and has already been dubbed “The Hideaway.”