Lucy Davis HITS the Bigtime!

By Paula Parisi March 24, 2011

Leaving the juniors behind, 18-year-old Lucy Davis ignited the adult phase of her career with a stellar four consecutive grand prix victories on the HITS Desert Circuit in Thermal, Calif., including the prestigious $200,000 Lamborghini Grand Prix of the Desert on Nemo 119.

It’s been a breakout season even by Davis’ standard of steady and rigorous ascent. The senior at the Harvard-Westlake School in Studio City has racked up a number of impressive achievements over the years. She has participated on the North American Young Rider team three years, earning individual gold and silver medals and two team golds, including last year’s. A regular presence on the California circuit, her path could be a blueprint for show jumping success. She started with ponies and worked her way up through the ranks of hunters and equitation, riding with Archie Cox and Brookway Stables. “I moved to Archie at age 12, with a large pony. Prior to that, I only went to like five shows a year, locally.” Simultaneously, she began training in the jumpers with Dick Carvin and Susie Schroer, a collaboration that culminated in Davis’ somewhat surprising triumph in a field of veteran riders at the Langer Equestrian Group’s Memorial Day Classic last year at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center.

Davis says a turning point was her experience competing at the global Young Masters Final in Germany in December 2009. Though she had to qualify, she was more or less hand-selected by the United States Equestrian Federation to attend and represent the U.S. She came home with the championship trophy. “I was really inspired over there and got a lot more serious about my riding,” Davis says. “It opened my eyes to how there was so much more than I was doing in California, and I could really make a life out of this.” Davis began training with one of Germany’s reigning superstars, Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum (another Southern California girl, who emigrated to Germany to marry Markus Beerbaum, who also works with Davis). Although she plans to return to Germany this summer to train with the Beerbaums, who wintered in Thermal at HITS, Davis also trains locally with Gabriella Salick (also a Beerbaum student). Davis talked to The Equestrian News editor in chief Paula Parisi following her spectacular showing on the HITS Desert Circuit in Thermal this winter.

The Equestrian News: Do you consider yourself more an intuitive or a technical rider?

Lucy Davis: It’s definitely really intuitive for me. I have a hard time explaining what I do, but the training definitely gives the intuition a direction. When I go into the ring, it’s the one time I’m focused on one thing, in the present, just going toward the next jump. We have a strategy going in, but once I’m in the ring, it’s very intuitive.

TEN: How did you find the courses at HITS?

Davis: The indoor is definitely harder for me, just because in California you don’t really get to do a lot of indoors. It’s a much tighter ring, and there’s not a lot of room for error. But the outdoor courses are difficult too, just in a different way. There’s more space, and they’re usually extremely technical courses.

TEN: You’ve had a great deal of success with your current horses, and really managed to bring them along at HITS. How long have you had them and what are they like?

Davis: I’ve had Nemo 119 for about a year. He’s a 12-year-old Holsteiner that we bought from Nick Skelton. Hannah is a 10-year-old Oldenburg, and I’ve had her about a year and a half. So I wouldn’t say I was bringing them up through HITS, but I definitely think we were working on stuff—rideability. In the end, it kind of all came together. The two of them are like apples to oranges. She’s got a lot of blood and is kind of light on her feet, and he’s a real powerhouse. It’s nice as a rider to be able to develop the ability to ride different types of horses.

TEN: You had an extraordinary show at Thermal, winning the last four grand prix, all in a row. What were some of your biggest challenges at that show?

Davis: That last one, the $200,000 Grand Prix of the Desert, was one of the bigger classes I’d done, so just getting through that was really rewarding. They had a huge triple bar that was getting a lot of people. It was really big and really wide. There were a lot of tricks here and there.

TEN: And the show informally marked your transition from a junior to an adult rider. You are now 18, and competing regularly with professionals, even though technically you continue to ride as an amateur, since you only ride your own horses.

Davis: Yes, I finished out my equitation this fall, and will strictly be competing as an amateur jumper now, though I continue to train with Archie [Cox]. He is a great coach and a close family friend, and he will always be part of my riding program.

TEN: Some people just do a little hunters and then splash right into the jumpers. In equitation, which is judged strictly on the style and correctness of the rider, exclusive of the horse, there is obviously a lot of pressure to get it right. You can’t just cross your fingers and hope the horse carries you over the fence. I would imagine that kind of training is quite helpful in establishing the basics that can make all the difference at the high-performance level.

Davis: Yes, the equitation definitely helps. Even something as simple as learning how to get your horse supple and listening to you through turns and mastering the different tests that equitation presents. It doesn’t train you for the heights, but it trains you for the in between. I had a really great equitation horse with Archie, Patrick.

TEN: I’ve been impressed with your ability to ride out Nemo 119’s bucking. You make it look easy. And in an English saddle!

Davis: I just kick into survival mode! He’s really feisty, and he has his little bucking routine at the beginning of the round, but he jumps incredibly after that, because he’s had more experience in bigger classes than I’ve had. When we bought him, he had done some of the bigger height grand prix and bigger international classes with Nick.

TEN: What’s it like competing against one of your trainers, Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum?

Davis: Meredith and Markus are always so positive, and genuinely excited when you do well and get through stuff. They’re really inspiring to me, and it’s all very much a team thing. We walk the course together, we share the same plans and we’re all rooting for each other. But when you say, “competing”…I don’t go into the ring thinking of her as a competitor, because I’m definitely not on her level. She’s so much better.

TEN: Would you ever consider moving to Germany like she did?

Davis: I’ll be there for most of the summer. I definitely think that in order to pursue riding as a career path, maybe after college, I would have to seriously consider it. I definitely want to complete college, but I don’t want to close doors to anything else. I’m going to Stanford in the fall, so I’m going to continue to compete and ride.

TEN: I know it’s been hard for you to maintain such a rigorous competition schedule while maintaining your grade pointaverage. And that must only be compounded by the fact that your sport is so different from those in which most of your school peers are participating.

Davis: Yeah, riding means something way different to me than soccer or volleyball means to them. Yet the people at school tend to think of riding as a hobby. They don’t really understand the sport, like they do in Europe or on the East Coast. They don’t look at riders as athletes. But when you get to a certain height, and a certain technical level, there is definitely athleticism involved. It’s important to be really fit and take it a lot more…not too seriously, because you still need to have

fun, but to treat it as what it is: an Olympic sport. I’m naturally a very competitive person, and to step into a ring or on a court or on a field with a huge crowd, I love it. It’s really fun and exciting, and it’s my passion.

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