Last year Silva Martin had to sit out Dressage at Devon as she was at the hospital giving birth to her third son, Koa Martin. So this year’s edition was extra special as she topped the Dressage at Devon Dance-Off on Sept. 27—the same day Koa celebrated his first birthday.
Silva was busy all week at the show, held Sept. 24-29, riding two young horses, her small tour partner Zaphir, and two upper-level eventers campaigned by her husband, Olympian Boyd Martin.
The highlight of the week came on Friday, when she got a chance to ride in the second annual Dressage at Devon Dance-Off aboard her old partner and homebred warmblood mare Rosa Cha W (Regardez Moi—Jasmine W), coming home with the (literal) crown.
Dressage rider and trainer Nicole DelGiorno and local amateur rider Christina Morin-Graham, who both sit on the Dressage At Devon board of directors, helped put together this year’s Dance-Off, which featured a live string quartet playing pop songs à la Netflix’s hit period drama “Bridgerton.”
Four riders—Silva, Lauren Chumley, last year’s winner Lauren Sammis and Jim Koford—reached picked a decade as their costume theme, then rode a short freestyle in either trot or canter. They were judged by Grand Prix rider JJ Tate and two breakdancers, Nemesis and 2024 Paris Olympic gold medalist Phil Wizard.
Silva’s student and friend Cheryl Griffith came up with her ’60s hippie costume. Another student suggested she ride with a fake, oversized joint in her mouth, a fun touch that had everyone laughing.
“One of my good owner’s daughters who’s only 12 said, ‘Oh my god, it was so cool that you were playing the flute while you were riding!’ ” she said with a laugh.
“I was the lucky one because my friend Cheryl worked tireless hours making my costume,” she added. “Everybody was so impressed with the costume, but I didn’t do anything except for put it on and get on my horse. At the end of the day, I wasn’t really the champion; I was just the one that received the crown and was put in the spotlight.”
ADVERTISEMENT
In the weeks leading up to the competition, Silva and her competitors were egging each other on in a WhatsApp group, and on the day, they were sweet-talking Tate in the warm-up ring during the CDI.
“I’ve known JJ for close to 20 years, and just hyping her up for this when she was one of the judges—me and Lauren and Jim and Lauren were all on JJ’s case,” she said. “We were warming up for the CDI together, and we’d make comments about how wonderful she looks just to get her on our sides.”
Silva’s partner for the class, Rosa Cha W, is 20 years old and has recently been acting as a small tour schoolmaster for her student Pamela Murphy.
“I have an amazing relationship with her,” Silva said of the mare. “She loves the spotlight. The louder people are the more she loves it. She was having the best time.”
With the fake joint in her mouth, Silva rode her canter pirouettes and tempi changes one-handed, which she knew wouldn’t be a problem for her mare.
“There’s not many horses you could do it with, but this horse is just amazing. She’s like a circus horse, really!” she said with a laugh.
View this post on InstagramADVERTISEMENT
Silva enjoyed seeing the connection between breaking and dressage.
“I think for the sport this is an amazing thing,” she said. “Dressage is very serious, as it should be, but just throwing something so fun in there for the spectators and for them to be engaged and do some of the judging—no pressure. Dressage has to be so focused, and you can’t put one foot wrong. It was just a breath of fresh air.”
As for her “serious” dressage horses, she finished with three white ribbons in the CDI small tour classes with Zaphir, a 9-year-old warmblood gelding (Zodiac—Quantas, Quattro B) owned by Janice Murdoch.
“He was wonderful,” she said. “He’s a horse for the future—he’s not even 9 yet. He’s a little bit green, and we made some green mistakes, most of them mine and some were his, and we ended up fourth in every class, which is actually really good because it’s such a big class. It was a very competitive class with a lot of really good people from Florida, so for him to go out and hold his own was pretty impressive.”
She also rode fourth level tests with Commando 3, an 11-year-old Holsteiner gelding (Connor 48—R-Adelgunde, Amigo XX) owned by Yankee Creek Ranch LLC, and Boyd’s Paris Olympic mount Fedarman B, a 14-year-old Dutch Warmblood gelding (Eurocommerce Washington—Paulien B, Fedor) owned by the Annie Goodwin Syndicate, to help prepare them for their fall three-days.
