Page 14 - Classically Carolina 2018

HORSES

Ribbons

& trophies

In Hunter/Jumper world,

Liza Towell Boyd is royalty

B

Born in the saddle? Hardly. Put there well before she could walk? Certainly.

In the competitive world of Hunter Jumpers, Liza Towell Boyd is among
the world’s best riders. Her father and mother saw and developed her skill.
She maintains it at Finally Farm, her family’s Hunter/Jumper farm in
Camden.

Jack Towell, Boyd’s father and a 2016 inductee into the National Show
Hunter Hall of Fame, is responsible for giving his daughter her start in
the saddle mere days after Boyd was born. “It was about 2 o’clock in the
afternoon,” Towell recalled. “…I stopped by the barn and put her on top of
this gray horse that I had for a customer. That day was the first time she
was ever on a horse.”
Boyd’s mother, Lisa, gave her lessons with the youngster atop her first
show pony, Cash and Carry. The ribbons started coming Boyd’s way before
she was 9 years old as she won her first major circuit pony class title at the
Devon Horse Show and Country Fair in western Pennsylvania. Her junior
career would take off from there.
As a junior, Boyd was named Overall World Champion Hunter Rider three
times, was second in the Washington International Equitation Finals and
won the Best Child Rider Award at the Washington International Horse
Show four times.

After completing her junior career, Boyd left Camden and regular
competition behind to attend the College of Charleston. Since her return
to Camden, she’s won more than 25 United States Hunter Jumper
Association (USHJA) International and National Hunter Derbies and
rode her now-retired mount Brunello to victory in the 2013, 2014 and
2015 USHJA International Hunter Derby Championships. Boyd earned
the U.S. Open $50,000 Duchossois Cup aboard O’Ryan at the Fourth
Annual Central Park Horse Show in late 2017 and the $50,000 USHJA
International Hunter Derby aboard S&L Cobbler to conclude the 2018
Winter Equestrian Festival.

Boyd isn’t ready to start slowing down, even though she and her husband
Blake are the parents of two young daughters. “We’re lucky to have made
a career out of doing what we love to do.”

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