Boyd Martin: At Home at Windurra

By Laura Scaletti

Portraits by Adrienne Morella

Boyd Martin has earned a lot of eventing titles over the years. He’s the 2025 USEF International Equestrian of the Year, a four-time Olympian, two-time Pan Am gold medalist, five-star winner and is currently ranked number two in the world. He may be a household name in the equestrian community, but inside the Martin home at his Windurra USA in Cochranville, Pennsylvania, Boyd’s best known as Dad—and the fourth “boy” in a family of five.

Mornings at Windurra start early with Boyd and his wife, Silva, trying to get the boys—Nox, Leo and Koa—ready for the day. “I hear Silva yelling for everyone to get ready starting at 6:30 a.m., because the boys are refusing to eat breakfast, saying they aren’t hungry. Trying to get them dressed is like herding cats,” Boyd said. “Luckily we have our nanny of 11 years, who comes to look after Koa, our 2-year-old, around the same time we shovel Nox and Leo off to the school bus.”

Once the boys are squared away for the day, Boyd and Silva head to the barn to run their respective elite programs. “We are so lucky that we live on the farm,” Silva said. “We can walk outside and get right to riding and/or teaching for the day. I do that until 3:20 p.m., get the boys off the bus and start getting them ready for sports in the afternoon, feed them and do homework. When Boyd is home he does a lot of sports activities with the boys, which is very helpful. Then we’ll rinse and repeat the whole thing again the next day.”

When the boys aren’t busy with sports or after-school activities, they’re outside enjoying all the kid-friendly amenities on the farm. “Our competition schedules are relentless, so we’ve tried to make our farm pretty fun to be around. We put a pool in out back, we’ve got a trampoline, there’s a zipline, a basketball hoop, ice bath and hot tub. One of the hard lessons for me is I think I’m sort of reliving my youth in Australia and sometimes I get caught being one of the boys and causing chaos,” Boyd said. “Silva often has to remind me I’m a grown up.”

Becoming Boyd

Boyd’s journey to the Olympics actually began at the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble, France, where his parents, Ross and Toy, met. Toy was an active child like Boyd, and her father bought her a pair of five-dollar ice skates at the local pawn shop to get her energy out on the frozen lakes in Illinois.

“She won a raffle for 10 ice skating lessons at the ice rink that had just been built near her house, fell in love with ice skating and moved to Norway at 17 to start training for speed skating. She went on to compete in the 3,000m speed-skating race at Grenoble,” Boyd said.

On the other side of the world in Australia, Boyd’s dad left school at 14 years old and went to work on a sheep farm near the Snowy Mountains. “The farmer he worked for was a keen Nordic skier and trained my dad in cross-country skiing. He went on to represent Australia in the 15km and 30km ski races,” Boyd said. “Mom followed Dad back to Australia after the Games, where they later got married and had me and my sister.”

Although his parents were Olympians themselves, they never pressured Boyd to follow in their footsteps. Rather, he was encouraged to participate in any and every sport from a young age. “Sport was really important in our household. I played soccer, cricket and rugby; I was a good runner, a surf lifesaver and rode with the local Pony Club,” Boyd said. 

Boyd’s involvement with Pony Club changed the trajectory of his life, eventually catapulting him onto the world stage. Joining 100 other riders, Boyd and his sister would leave their 2.5-acre family farm each Sunday to embark on a Pony Club adventure.

“It took about an hour and a half to ride to the meet-up point. Then we’d spend the day doing mounted games, racing, jumping, doing some flat work and cross-country. We’d take a break for lunch midday, tie the horses to a tree, give them some hay, get back on, finish the day, and then start the ride home. In the winter, some of the parents would drive behind us with their headlights on to make sure we made it home safely,” Boyd said. “Pony Club is where I first fell in love with horses.”

The freedom Boyd felt in the saddle was a stark contrast to what he felt at his desk in the classroom. “I was a terrible student, had trouble concentrating and sitting still. It was very, very obvious that I wasn’t going to become an accountant. Not once did a teacher ever talk to me about university. To be honest, my mom and dad never brought it up at the dinner table or ever mentioned it,” he said.

Instead, Boyd’s parents encouraged him to follow his heart and pursue a career with horses. “Literally the day after I finished high school, my mom and dad helped me pack my bags and I moved up to the bunkhouse at the New South Wales Equestrian Center with my horse, Flying Doctor, and started doing horses full time,” Boyd said. “I think basically they wanted to get me out of Sydney and out of the house, so they found a training center with a lot of great coaches.”

Much like Ross and Toy had done with their respective sports, once given the opportunity to train with talented coaches, Boyd flourished. One of 14 working students on a farm with 300 horses, Boyd was involved in breaking in horses, eventing, jumping, breeding and branding the horses. 

“It was sunup to sundown seven days a week. I just loved that I was working horses all day every day and there was such camaraderie amongst all the riders. I loved the process of training towards a goal,” he said. “At competitions it wasn’t all about winning, but rather the challenge of getting around the course unscathed.”

New Adventures

When Boyd met Silva at the New South Wales Equestrian Center, he was not in an unscathed condition. “I had a broken leg at the time. I’d actually broken my knee in nine places and was on crutches. I had hair down to my shoulders and was a bit feral,” Boyd admitted.

Legendary German dressage trainer Rudolf Zeilinger had sent Silva to Australia with three stallions he had sold. The plan was for Silva to help the stallions get settled into their new home, learn English and return home to Germany. After spotting Silva, Boyd had other plans.

“I gathered up some courage, hopped over to her on my crutches and invited her to the Newcastle Horse Races the next day. I don’t think she quite understood me, but she went anyway,” he said. “I carefully selected eight of my good mates, who were a bit wilder and more out of control than me, so I was the best of the bad lot. I think Silva was speechless after watching the others, so I swept her off her feet.” 

Boyd and Silva quickly became a team. “It wasn’t really a plan; it just worked out that way. Silva had dressage horses, I had eventing horses and we rented paddocks together. Silva rode to the Grand Prix level and I rode in all the four- and five-stars in Australia and New Zealand,” Boyd said.

Feeling like he’d achieved and done everything he could do in Australia, Boyd was ready to tackle competitions, like Kentucky and Badminton, that he’d only read about in magazines. At the time, those events seemed a world away. Undeterred, Boyd sold a few horses to fund his next adventure and put his horse Ying Yang Yo on a plane to the United States.

“A friend of a friend got me in touch with Phillip Dutton and I asked him if I’d be able to rent a stable for my horse. We left Australia in the summer and arrived aboard a cargo plane in the middle of winter. I still remember this bloody blizzard of snow gusting into the side of the plane,” Boyd said. “It was a surreal experience; and then we went to Phillip’s.”

Boyd didn’t know anyone at his first competition at Southern Pines (now Carolina International), but that didn’t dampen his love for his new adventure. “I just rode around Advanced straightaway and loved America. I ended up placing 11th at Kentucky. Before I headed back to Australia, I was having a couple of beers with Phillip and he said, ‘Why don’t you come back and work for me?’” Boyd said. 

Silva had come over to the U.S. to cheer Boyd on and was equally excited about the opportunity to come to America. Within six months, the duo sold all their horses and belongings in Australia. “We got married on December 29, 2006. Two days later, I boarded a plane to America and Silva got stopped at customs because her visa hadn’t come through. Six weeks later she joined me and we both worked for Phillip,” Boyd said.

Once in the U.S., Boyd hustled hard. “We had a whole new restart, so we were working for Phillip during the day, then in the evening we were teaching people in the neighborhood. It was full-on ‘make it or break it,’” he said. After working for Phillip for three years, doing everything from cleaning stalls to grooming to riding Phillip’s young horses and some of his three-star horses, Boyd was ready to hang his own shingle in 2010 and continue his American adventure.

Martin Family

While Boyd and Silva didn’t have a grand plan when it came to starting a family, the moment Boyd found out Silva was pregnant with Nox he embraced this new chapter with his trademark enthusiasm. Nox, Leo and Koa are now the center of the Martin family’s world.

“Having the boys has given us a new perspective on life. Before we had kids everything revolved around us and our businesses. Now it’s, ‘How are we going to fit horses around the kids’ schedules?’ There are times when I’m doing stuff for the kids where I feel like I should be training horses, but I’ve got an unbelievable team that covers for me,” Boyd said. “To be honest, I’m more successful now than before I had kids.”

As soon as Boyd finishes work for the day at Windurra, he turns into an Uber driver, shuttling the boys to their respective activities. “It’s definitely challenging because this sport we’ve chosen is so time consuming. There’s no half-doing it or trying to live a normal life and thinking you’re going to be successful, so it’s a really tough balance of trying to be present as a parent while understanding this sport requires so much time, energy and effort,” he said. “There are times of the year when I’m flat out running and going hard, but I try to make sure I’m Super Dad when the sport is quiet.”

When Boyd preps for big competitions, Silva carries all the parental responsibilities. “Anyone who’s as successful and as driven as Boyd has to be a little selfish at times. As a partner it can be frustrating, because he turns into a totally different person for short periods of time,” Silva said. “He’s as driven as he’s ever been; the difference is that now he misses us in the lead-up to the big events.”

Though there are times where work takes Boyd away from the family, he’s insistent on being as present as possible when he can. “It’s not ideal, but you know, the father who works a 9–5 job, gets home and drinks a six-pack of Bud Light isn’t present either, and he’s home a lot. When I’m with the kids, whether that’s riding, hanging out or doing sports, I make sure that I’m totally there,” Boyd said. 

Boyd and Silva aren’t forcing the boys to follow in their equestrian footsteps. “The biggest thing for me is for them to have fun around the horses. I think it’s a bit of an awkward position if you’re a kid and your parents are really good at something. That puts a tiny bit of pressure that you need to live up to your parents,” Boyd said. 

Now that their oldest, Nox, has gotten interested in riding, Boyd sends him for lessons with Peter Wylde every now and then. “I think it’s healthy thing for kids to get coached by someone other than their mother or father. You know eventually in life, you’re going to have a boss who’s going to have expectations. If you come up short, he’s going to be disappointed and you’re going to have to know how to handle that,” Boyd said. 

Following his parents’ lead, Boyd thinks sports are wonderful teachers for kids. “I’m a big believer that winning should be difficult, you shouldn’t get a trophy just for participating. I think it’s a healthy thing, being disappointed and having setbacks, because sometimes you work really hard and you still fall short. Young people need to understand that sometimes the sport is beautiful, but other times something embarrassing may happen and you have to dust yourself off and get back on,” he said. “That’s a wonderful life lesson horses can give us.”

Silva believes important life lessons happen around the farm. “I make sure the boys come out and help us at the barn on the weekends. They need to understand that this farm doesn’t run on its own; it takes a lot of hard work. You know they complain, they’re not happy about it, but they still come out and help,” Silva said. “It’s very important to me that the boys understand that everyone here has to work, including them.”

It’s this mix of fun and structure that make Boyd and Silva the perfect team for three growing boys. “I’m a big kid and see myself as one of the boys. I have not mastered the skill of disciplining them yet. Silva is sort of the disciplinarian; before the boys came along, I took all the verbal lashings. Now I feel like the boys have distracted her just slightly so we’re sharing in her disciplinary actions equally,” Boyd laughed.

“The boys treat him like one of them. They have zero respect of any authority coming from Boyd. If he says no they just laugh at him and then I hear him yell, ‘Mama!’ I’m like, ‘Don’t call me Mama, be the grown up!’” Silva said.

No matter how many accolades Boyd earns in the horse world, at home he’s just the fourth boy who’s always game for shenanigans. At Windurra, Boyd will always remain grounded.

Follow Boyd on Instagram and Facebook @boydmartineventing or visit boydmartin.net

Photos by Adrienne Morella, adriennemorellaphotography.com, unless noted otherwise