The video provides live commentary and post‑round analysis of Boyd Martin’s cross‑country performance at the 2024 Badminton Horse Trials. It highlights Martin’s ambition to complete every five‑star event, introduces his 17‑year‑old horse Tetzelage (also referred to as Tetzelik), and walks through key sections of the course – the half‑bridge, Vicarage area, Sunken Road, and various water and ditch combinations. Commentators discuss Martin’s route choices, timing, and the penalties incurred (including a 60‑penalty long‑route error and time fractions). Expert insights from Tim Price, Claire Balding, and references to course designer Eric Winter’s notes add perspective on horse handling, course difficulty, and strategic decisions. The narrative balances praise for Martin’s skill and horse’s resilience with acknowledgment of missed opportunities and the physical demands of the course.
Chapters
He's doing a great job
now. Void. Martin sets a leg. Tsf. Boyd Martin, who posted a solid dressage test and he's right there among the leading contenders to take this title.
Really exciting to have Boyd over here. Boyd, 44 years old and this tetzelage is 17 as well. So hugely experienced. He is trying Boyd to complete every five star in the world. And Bammington is the one that he really needs under his belt.
And when you consider that one of them is in Adelaide, it's not an easy thing to accomplish.
Absolutely not. Horses do travel very, very well, but obviously there's expense involved, as you can imagine. And if you've got the support team behind you to allow you to try and achieve that, it must be some amazing feeling.
Set to leg is 17 now, but no back number on recent evidence.
Not at all. Whoa. Absolute. Absolutely committed to that. He totally trusted. That's the leg that he. Horses really full of galloping. And for Tom as well. The horse is not tired. And we hear Tetzelik into the Huntsman's close. Boyd Hall.
Whoa.
That was really close. He was very close. I. I think he's fine. He has knocked the flag down. He did go the quicks down because I should think he could just be a little bit down on the clock. Boys coming into. Into the lake, nature's gone a little bit more of an angle, so he gets one extra stride in the water to then ride forward to that. Yeah, really well ridden. It was a decision whether to make a turn. Here we go. He's got straight. You can see he's slightly angled. That's a relatively small fence. It's about a meter 15, meter 20. But to land on grass is a luxury at this level, so you've got the chance to make a turn. As you can see, he's holding on to his left rein to make it really clear. He was very accurate. Land and drive forward up to this narrow fence. But keeping hold of the rein so the horse knows exactly where it needs to go.
All right, back with Boyd Martin and sets a leg.
The half bridge. Absolutely fly it. It's a. It's a. It's a rider spectator frightener. The horses don't really notice that they run up the ramp and you just get that lovely feeling of air as you're flying through it. You're meant to smile.
I like Eric Winter, the course designer's notes to competitors, where he said, just keep kicking.
Absolutely. And here, coming into the eyelashes, you've got to keep up the pace. It wouldn't Be normally how you'd ride a coffin. And he kept across there, got the two strikes. He's ticking. But this is Will's opportunity to really show the selectors in the world that he's a world class rider.
Lloyd Martin sets a leg.
They've come up quite a slope up to this fence. So you can see Boyd just saying, oh, listen to me, that's quite an airy sort of rail drops down. No, he's going to go long because he didn't shorten his reins quick enough to have the control to ask him to jump that log. So again, time wasting. Turning the horse away probably wastes about five seconds, but yeah, that's lovely. We're giving him a hug. He's proud of what he's done.
That's not lovely. That was a surprise for Boyd Martin and sets a leg at the sunken
road that I wouldn't have expected for this combination. He's now going to take the longer route going in, but I think that's a leg again. Just looks a little bit flat, a little bit tired. Boyd is having to work a lot harder than you would expect. And the fact he's now going to be doing this really long route, very energy sapping. It'd be very interesting to see where he goes from here because he has got a long way to go from here. He's going down now to hope that when he runs downhill after these silver birch rails, that he'll be hoping that Tetzelake just fills his lungs with a little bit more air and then gets another run on and to jump these big ditches. And Boyd is so experienced, he knows that horses can come what we say, on and off the bridle. That means one minute they're taking you, next minute they take a few breaths and then they're back taking you again. And that's an experience that you gain with the more horses you ride.
And again, it's an interesting gauge of just how this is going to play out today because he's such a little coiled spring of a horse, this, Even though he's 17 years old, that you'd expect him to be taking you, wouldn't you?
Yes. But as you can just see then, you know, he looked a bit flat going through a few fences go. And then he's just picked up again. So Boyd will be like, oh, you know, he's back with me again. Let's just keep going. You know, as a rider, you've got to, to feel how your horse is and if it's unusual that they're not being their normal self. Yes. And I would have thought his plan A would have been to have gone straight. But as he landed, he landed a little bit short. The horse is a bit flat. Boyd's reins have got a little bit long. He's having to go long. So again,
Boyd over this and as he heads out into the country, he'll join Claire.
Honest, they're very different horses. Dreamer has a much but he's got an amazing big gallop. The other horse would have a smaller stride and need a little bit more looking after. Dreamer found that vicarage ditch area quite hard work. It's twisty and actually it's quite up and down and that's where I lost a lot of my time. So maybe the other horse would be a bit quicker there, but I'm going to go and watch a few and come up with a pretty different plan for him.
Okay. And you think may be quicker.
He wouldn't have the gallop. So maybe I'll know a bit more about the course. To be honest, I got nervous last night. There was quite a heated rider meeting and the ground jury were worried about tired horses. And I had a great round of him at Blenheim last year. But I just thought don't, you know, don't knock them out completely. He's done one other five star with Oliver Tannen. He was tired after that, so, you know, maybe I could have taken a bit more risks, but we'll come back and do that again another year.
Tom, thank you. That's been one of the best rider interviews I've ever done.
Thank you very much.
Claire Balding. Making dreams come true down in the collecting area. What a nice chap.
He is a lovely, lovely man and I saw him when we were walking the course before and we discussed a few of the fences. I'm so thrilled for him. That will have made his day.
Claire Boyd, Martin. It'll be disappointment for him and sets a leg, but they finish.
He will definitely be very disappointed. But he had a very bitty sort of round. You know, one minute the horse was going, but, you know, he's actually finished a lot better than what he looked. At one point I was thinking, gosh, Boyd might have to be pulling him up. But it just shows he knows his horse. He knows that his horse has got guts and determination and the horse really dug deep there. I think he had to work a lot harder than Boyd had thought he had. And as you can see, he's happily trotting along, winding into the arena now.
And I know Boyd was pretty cross with himself on the cross country yesterday. A silly glance off at pretty for this combination. What you would have said a slightly easier fence, but you know us as riders, I think he said to me that he didn't really anticipate quite how intense the Vicarage V area is and it's relentless and, you know, one little mistake after the other after the the other. And he said the horse just suddenly went, enough's enough. But they came home and that's not how you want to start.
His last time here, of course, he got halfway through the Vicarage area before he came out the right hand side at the Vicarage V itself. So this is not the session, not the end of the sport that he was hoping to be jumping his Olympic partner with, who went so well at Burley last year for a top 10. But like you say, that problem out at the Ineos Grenadier Sunken Road, exacerbated then by the fact that Boyd a penalised long route, and there's only one long route out there that means you can get to the alternate third element without penalties. He didn't realize that, so he was judged to have crossed his tracks. So he got 60 penalties in all out there for essentially one stop.
Yeah, these combinations, they're very cleverly numbered and you have to. When you're walking the course, it's not just about finding the line, but it's knowing your get out of jail cards and knowing if you have a mistake, where do you have to go? Which elements do you have to jump? And it can be quite confusing, especially in the heat of the moment. That was a real shame because apart from the first fence, he had been jumping, I'd say probably the best I've ever seen this horse jump. No, it wouldn't be his strongest phase, but Boyd's been working really hard on him and they've come out looking really fresh and really well. And a real shame.
Yeah, just a fraction of a time penalty as well. So it's going to be 0.4 for the second over. We count every. We round up every fraction of a second. So eight for jumping, 0.4 of a time penalty. 122.6 for Boyd. You were saying how hard he's working on his jumping. He's worked for several years and had him with him here all this week. Olympic gold medalist Peter Wilde, who works with some of the top US riders on their show jumping, say not quite the week Boyd wanted. However, joining the ranks of the greats, he follows Tim Price and becomes the second rider in the world to have completed all seven of the permanently established five stars, Tim.
