Buck Davidson finished best of the US riders at last week’s Mars Maryland 5 Star, landing fourth place on ex-racehorse Sorocaima. The 13-year-old bay gelding, by Rock Hard Ten out of a mare by Pulpit, raced 60 times before turning to eventing.
“It was nice to be sat on a thoroughbred on the cross-country and to have an event where that phase really matters, as that’s the reason we do this sport,” said Buck, who had the third-fastest cross-country round for 5.2 time-faults, and moved up from 13th after dressage.
Sitting with Oliver Townend, Tim Price and David Doel in the final press conference, Buck paid tribute to Sorocaima’s character, saying: “He goes to work every day and tries his heart out. He’s only been doing this sport [internationally] four years and this is his sixth five-star; he’s had a ninth, sixth and now fourth. Hopefully next year he’ll come out a bigger, better, stronger horse and in time we can knock these boys off the table.”
Buck said he was a little disappointed with his final-phase performance as he had the middle element of the treble at six and the first part of the double at 12 down, plus 0.4 of a time-fault, but the showjumping is a work in progress – the horse had 28 faults at his first CCI5*, at Kentucky in 2022.
He explained how he works on this with Sorocaima: “I took him to some jumping shows, but that actually made him more nervous and he jumped worse, so now I take him to facilities and set up courses, just with him there by himself or with one other horse. He doesn’t love other horses coming at him or the warm-up.
“It’s just a case of getting him confident – he tries, he doesn’t have a rail because he’s not trying, but sometimes he gets out of shape [in terms of the position of his body through the jump], so it’s just working on the shape and keeping everything consistent.”
Buck Davidson was also given an award for completing Maryland 5 Star five times – the equivalent of an Armada Dish at Badminton Horse Trials. He is the first person to receive this at the event, which first hosted a five-star in 2021. Three of Buck’s completions have come with Sorocaima, this year and in 2022 and 2023, plus he finished on Jak My Style in 2021 and Carlevo in 2022. Fourth this year is the rider’s best placing at the event so far.
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Pippa is a true eventing geek and has been H&H’s eventing editor since 2005. She has first-hand experience of competing up to British Eventing intermediate and international CCI2*-L level, and has worked in the industry on a top event yard. Pippa enjoys nothing more than immersing herself in the sport at the highest level, reporting from the five-stars and international championships, including the Olympics.
