The Secret to Boyd Exell’s Success

Story from August 2019 Horse Deals magazine.

“Work hard, work hard and work harder!”

FROM BEGA TO WORLD #1

A little on Boyd’s history...

Boyd’s interest in horses began in his early years at Bega, New South Wales. From non-horsey parents, Boyd’s love for horses could be traced back to his grandmother, who was a successful show rider.

As a young boy, Boyd’s birthday wish was a trip to a riding school so the whole family could go riding. He also dreamed about attending pony club, but instead, he was introduced to local Bega carriage driver Max Pearce. This meeting proved to be the catalyst in what would eventually lead to Boyd being the Number One World Champion in carriage driving.

Boyd’s schoolteacher mother was not at all keen on Boyd pursuing a career with horses, so he completed an apprenticeship with a local engineering firm as a backup.

By his early twenties Boyd had taken out the Australian Pairs Championships and then made the international move to expand his driving horizons, and that he has done.

Now aged 47, Boyd has not stopped winning including a stream of World Championships and World Cup Finals, competing at five World Equestrian Games, taking out individual gold at the last three, and comfortably sitting on his throne titled World Number One.

Catching up with Boyd Exell is not easy and if mobile phones did not exist it would not be possible, as the four-time World Carriage Driving Champion and eight-time World Cup Champion is constantly on a carriage and/or on the move. Over the years Horse Deals has produced a number of articles concerning the boy from Bega who took on the international carriage driving world and won and in doing so has become Australia’s most successful international sportsman. We thought it was time to renew our acquaintance.

We last caught up with Boyd at Olympia at the end of 2016, and again in early January 2017 at a carriage driving clinic in Northern Victoria. What is interesting about Boyd is that he is as at home in a press conference sipping champagne under the media spotlight, as he is riding on the back of a carriage instructing in a very hot and dusty paddock. Yes he is a hard worker and yes he is talented, but beyond that, he gets it; he gets what is necessary to succeed in life, not only in business, but also socially. “The nice thing about carriage driving” says Boyd, “is that we can host our sponsors and owners and we can take them to Royal Ascot on a coach (an English Park Drag) with a team of horses. We can take 10 to 12 guests and we can have three days of racing. We set off from the Royal Mews in Windsor Castle, head down through Windsor Great Park, spend the day racing, have lunch and take the guests home. That is one of the upsides of driving, to be able to host your owners and your sponsors in that way.” If you are reading this and you are anything like me, you would be thinking; how good would that be? It is the give and take of life that Boyd understands.

But he is a busy man and we were lucky enough to catch him at home in early July. “I do a lot of teaching and I tend to do three days away and two to three days at home. I am away from home a couple of times a week, but I need three consecutive days at home to do some productive training. You need three days to make headway in their education. But now I have two to three clear weeks to prepare for Aachen, our big show of the season. I moved from the UK to Valkenswaard in the Netherlands several years ago and now I am an hour away from Aachen. From the UK it used to take us 26 hours to get to Germany. I really miss the English countryside and the English sense of humour, but in terms of location and operating costs, the move to Valkenswaard had made a big saving on energy and cost.

“When at home, I hit the yard at about 8.30am and start training. I have lunch pretty much on the run and finish at 6, 7 or 8pm, whenever the work is done. Then there is a lot of work to maintain this property and each year since 2016 we have run the Driving Valkenswaard International (DVI) 3* and 4* CAI Combined Driving competition for Pairs and Teams of Four. It is well received and popular and I enjoy it, but it is a lot of work.

“I have a super team and this year I have enjoyed bringing a six year old to the forefront. He did the first three shows this season and did well and I have given him a bit of a break before Aachen. With horses there is always a challenge, whether you are introducing a new horse into the team, driving the team or training the five or six young horses I have every day. It is a tall order to bring a six year old into work with the 12/13 year olds and the quality of these horses is very high. To find a six year old with the same quality and movement as the rest of the team is a challenge and it takes about 30 horses to make a team of four. It is important to stimulate your horses to be educated and to enjoy the job you ask them to do. Then when the chips are down and they have to work hard you hope you have done enough that they will dig deep and help you out. If you haven’t been so horse friendly, they may not want to do that and just leave you to flounder. If you can win your horses over with kindness and discipline, then they always want to help you out.

“Breeding carriage horses over here is a big concern. I now use Dutch Gelderlanders that are specifically bred for carriage driving. These Dutch Harness Horses are superior; they are show horses and tend to have a lot of temperament and you have to be careful. The trick to buying a horse is buying one with a good character; character is king.

“I am talent spotting for drivers all the time and Tor van den Berge, known in Australia as a dressage rider and trainer, is the most exciting prospect that I have noticed and look forward to continue mentoring. Tor, with the support of Ross Carbery, a driving enthusiast who is happy to help those individuals with a good work ethic and talent, is planning to move to Europe permanently. Tor is doing well at the moment and we have hooked him up with a pair of horses and a truck etc. and he is flying at the moment. He has taken this opportunity and run with it. He has the work ethic, the talent and the experience in the horse industry to succeed. He is a good horseman with lots of dressage knowledge. He competed at Beekbergen, a big international show, at the end of June and he was second in the dressage to current World Pairs Champion, Martin Hölle from Hungary. So he shook the cage well. He held his position after the cross country but slipped a few places after the cones to finish sixth. It is important that he keeps his dressage name, as in driving your reputation is made in the dressage phase and it is the foundation for the rest of the competition.

“The situation is the same now as when I first came over. To succeed you still have to work hard, work hard and work harder. The opportunities are still here. There are people like Ross who have worked hard and are prepared to help someone they see is also a hard worker. I have found over the years that people come out of the woodwork to help you when they see talent combined with a work ethic. Tor is grasping the opportunity and moving here and he will continue his ridden dressage work as well. If Tor keeps progressing the way he is, he will step into a horse team and that will be really good news because maybe I can have a teammate to form an Australian Team. (Two teams make a National team in driving).

“Another young driver, Elizabeth Lawrence from Victoria has already represented Australia at the World Single Horse Championships. She has driven a pony team in Australia and at DVI she drove a horse team for the first time and that was an eye-opener for her. So she is also a possibility as an Australian Team Member. Over the summer here, a few people like Paul and Lorraine Cairns from Victoria come over from Australia to learn at the same time as helping out here which is good.”

Boyd declares that he “likes to be kept occupied.” He certainly does and the driver, trainer, coach, entrepreneur and show director shows no signs of stopping any time soon.