Boyd Martin grew up around horses in Sydney and bought his first five-star horse, Flying Doctor, for $1,200 at 19. A midnight barn fire at his training facility killed six horses, but he saved Neville Bardos, a thoroughbred who recovered and later placed seventh at Burghley Horse Trials.
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Hi, I'm Boyd Martin, this is Neville Bardos. This is my story for the love of the equestrian. I'm an international three day event rider. I was born in Australia but now ride for America. We grew up on the outskirts of Sydney. Pony Club was there, so we had a couple of ponies in the backyard. We did mounted games, jumping, eventing, you name it. And that's how basically I got started with horses. I just loved competition, I loved training the horses and I was very fortunate. As I was sort of finishing up school, this passion and the love for horses could ultimately turn into a career. My first five star horse was a horse called Flying Doctor. And yeah, I mean we bought him as a 12 year old off the track thoroughbred that never invented for 1200 bucks. And I fell off him when we tried him and he didn't run away. So my mum and dad said we should buy. I took him to Pony Club and then ended up going around my first five star when I was about 19. So that was, you know, that one probably lit the fire a little bit. Things were humming along. Actually we had a lot of horses in training. We were renting the top barn from Philip Dutton. I got a phone call about midnight with one of the girls that worked for us, just screaming that there was a fire. So I quickly jumped in the car and drove down and I'll never forget, you could just see this massive sort of yellow glow in the sky as you approaching the farm. And you know, I'll never forget it was just. The whole barn was just ablaze and black smoke everywhere and fire engines and sirens and it was a horrific sight and sort of almost go a little bit numb when you get encountered with something like that. We were lucky in the sense that we had a couple of friends there that we sort of ran into the barn and managed to free a couple of horses that were hiding and cowering in their stable. So we did well there. We sort of salvaged three or four horses that would have been dead but you know, we had, we lost six horses and it was a nightmare. Neville Bardos, he's a great horse but he wasn't that talented. He was just a tough, rugged Australian thoroughbred. I mean just a tough, tough horse that tried and tried and tried and he was actually one of the horses that was, was stuck in the fire and God, I'd never forget it. Like I didn't know it was his stable but going in the stable and hearing a horse in the background and feeling his wind sucking collar and then trying to drag him down the aisle way where Philip's behind him like a rugby player trying to push him down the burning building. And I mean, it was like a movie, like the roof was falling in and he couldn't see anything. And luckily he got the old horse out and he had burns and he went straight to the intensive care unit at New Bolton Centre. And then he started healing up. We ended up getting the nod to keep going with him. And then we actually got him to Burley that year, which was a huge goal of mine. He went to Burghley and just roared around the course. He finished seventh, so he was a good boy. He's still with us, actually. He's in the back paddock and must be 20 something years old now. And he's a good old horse. He's just always inquisitive at the barn. He's always got his ears pricked and he loves being part of the action. I think like any sports person, you have a couple of highs and they're followed by lots and lots of lows. You, I think over the years I've just learned to roll with the punches a little bit. Just had the mentality of this is not going to define us, just a bump in the road and you just got to keep soldiering on. And the amazing thing is that there's a huge equestrian community around, you know, and as soon as something terrible happens like this, you feel the absolute warmth from all the other people that love horses that are around you and you know, everyone's helping you out to get back on your feet. There wasn't a moment that I ever woke up in the morning and thought, oh, I don't want to go on and dust your off and understand that every day there's going to be a struggle that you just got to keep pushing through. And I think we're very, very lucky to have this thing where we wake up in the morning and go straight to the stable and you walk down the aisle way and then you hear the horses nickering at you and all of a sudden a couple of horses heads pop out the stable door and they're just sort of just wondering if that's breakfast already. And you hear a couple of the horses sort of neighing. I think that's pretty cool experience. And starting early and being there before adv else and you know, at that time of the day it's really calm and peaceful. You know, within about 10 or 15 minutes there's going to be wheelbarrows and feed cars and the chaos begins for the day.
