Lexington, Ky.—Aug. 28

“The king is back.”

Those were Boyd Martin’s first words when asked about Tsetserleg TSF’s dressage test Wednesday in the $60,000 Adequan USEA Advanced Final at the USEA American Eventing Championships.

Martin hasn’t competed his veteran partner since their run at the Badminton CCI5*-L (England) in May, deciding to save the 17-year-old Trakehner (Windfall—Thabana, Buddenbrock) for special events.

“He’s been in sizzling form in training,” he said. “Obviously, our last event was Badminton, and he’s got a bit of age on him now, so we just run him at the important ones. And we thought the AEC is an important one.”

The pair were on fine form between the white boards, scoring a 24.0 to take the lead. The last time they scored that low was in 2022, when they had several sub-25 scores.

“To be honest, I’ve changed my training around with ‘Thomas’ the last 12 months,” Martin said. “He’s so trained; he’s been so trained for so many years. And talking to some of my mentors now, it’s a matter of keeping him sweet and not drilling him in the dressage every day, like you did when he was younger and learning all the movements.

“And now Stephanie [Simpson], my groom, almost rides him more than me,” he continued. “She does all of his conditioning work. He probably does half the amount of dressage work that he used to do, just because he knows his stuff and to keep his body fresh and his mind happy. He more just does lots of hacking and conditioning work, and then he just schools on the flat a couple times a week.”

Martin also credited his wife, Grand Prix dressage rider Silva Martin, and Grand Prix dressage rider Anna Buffini and Olympic show jumper Peter Wylde for getting his horses primed for this week. Last week Boyd hosted a camp at his Windurra USA in Cochranville, Pennsylvania, where all three were instructors and also pitched in to help school his horses before the AEC.

While there’s still a lot more to do, Boyd plans to run Thomas at Plantation next to prep him for the Mars Maryland 5 Star at Fair Hill in October.

Just in behind him in second is his teammate from the Paris Olympics, Caroline Pamukcu, on King’s Especiale. With a 25.9, Pamukcu scored a personal best with “King,” a 9-year-old Dutch Warmblood (Connect—Cha Cha Cha Special, Vittorio) owned by Redfield King’s HX Group.

“He’s an amazing mover, and the biggest thing with him is that I just had to ride him decent,” Pamukcu said. “You know, like he should always be winning the dressage, and it’s just making sure that I do a good job, because he’s got all the pieces. He’s one of those horses that’s a once in a lifetime horse.”

Pamukcu has been riding the gelding since he was 4 and brought him up through the USEA Young Event Horse Program. She rode him on the U.S. Eventing European Development Tour this spring. The gelding’s last outing was the Millstreet CCIO4*-NC-S (Ireland) in May, where the U.S. team was second. King then had some time off while Pamukcu was preparing HSH Blake for her Olympic debut, and Mason Reidy kept him going while she was abroad.

Pamukcu doesn’t have any big competition plans for any of her horses this fall. Instead, she said she will be focusing on making improvements to help her compete with the best in the world.

“I’m going to buckle down on my show jumping and pure dressage, looking forward to doing the best I can and training myself and them for the [world championships] in two years,” she said. “I’ve got to improve myself. After the Olympics, it just shows me how, if I want to be world No. 1 and win an individual medal, I’ve got a lot to learn. So I was going to spend the fall really focusing.”

Slotting into third was Pamukcu’s coach Sharon White on her own Claus 63, a 12-year-old Holsteiner (Catoo—Tina II, Levisto) on a 27.4.

“I love that he got the same scores from both judges with how professional he was,” White said. “We’ve been working on reliability—not some of the time, all of the time—which is not easy, by the way. It takes a lot of focus. You have to look to yourself first: I have to be reliable too, which means I have to be focused all the time, and it’s a lot of effort.”

See complete scores here.