Reigning USHJA International Hunter Derby Champion Liza Boyd will be sitting out the first half of the 2014 show season as she’s pregnant with her second child. She and husband Blake Boyd are expecting another girl to join their 4-year-old daughter Elle in early June.

Liza, 34, enjoyed a banner season in 2013, riding Brunello to the top of the USHJA International Hunter Derby Championship (Ky.) this August and finishing out the year by winning the WCHR Professional Challenge at Capital Challenge (Md.) in September on Quatrain. Liza has stopped riding and is keeping busy training out of her Finally Farm in Camden, S.C., and teaching lessons and clinics.

“It’s funny because at Capital Challenge and then Washington Peter Pletcher was teasing me saying, ‘You’re pregnant,’ and we laughed about it,” said Liza. “And now here I am!”

Brunello, whom Liza co-owns with Janet Peterson, is staying in work but will stay out of the show ring until Liza’s back in the tack. Quatrain, meanwhile, has a new career in the junior hunter ring, and he just finished Aiken Winter Classic I (S.C.) as champion in the 3’3” junior hunter division with new owner Laura Critz.