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Lucy Davis

The Dream Comes True

Remarkably, Lucy was only 21 when she was named to the U.S. bronze medal team at the 2014 FEI World Equestrian Games, riding with McLain Ward, Beezie Madden, and Kent Farrington. She and her brilliant mount Barron rejoined those iconic riders at the 2016 Olympics, where the squad earned silver. U.S. Show Jumping Coach Robert Ridland believes in having a younger rider included with veterans on championship teams.

Before the WEG, he said of Lucy, “She’s got nerves of steel. She knows what to expect. As I told her, `You’re not the fourth rider. You’re one of four riders.’”

A native of Los Angeles, Lucy came up through the ranks, making the equitation finals and earning double gold in the junior section of the North American Junior and Young Rider Championships in 2008, the same year she was Best Child Rider at the Pennsylvania National Horse Show. She returned several times to NAJYRC, winning individual silver in 2009 and taking gold with the Zone 10 team in 2010.

A multi-dimensional talent who graduated from Stanford University with a bachelor of science in engineering and a specialization in architectural design, Lucy also is the co-founder of The Pony App, a stable management and horse care application. Following the Olympics, she became a trainer at Old Salem Farm in Westchester County, New York, while continuing to focus on developing her own horses.

The 2014 FEI World Equestrian Games in Normandy was the first time Stanford University graduate Lucy Davis had ridden on a championship team. Coach Robert Ridland felt it was important to pair up-and-coming riders with veterans so they gained experience, and in this case, it worked out with a team bronze medal to which Lucy and her mount, Barron, contributed.

I knew what I wanted. Almost as soon as I began taking riding lessons, I zeroed in on my future with horses. My dream since I was in kindergarten always was to be in the Olympics. When I made the team for the 2016 Olympics, my two best friends from kindergarten, Kellie Barnum and Christine Kanoff, came to Rio with their families to watch me ride. They joked that I gave them ample notice because I was already talking about it in kindergarten!

My grandfather, Robert Barron Frieze, was a jockey’s agent until he was 75. He worked hard to get where he wanted to be, and became a huge role model for me. He knows a good horse when he sees one.

Because of what he did for a living, horses were very important in the life of my mother, Kelly Davis, and eventually in mine as well. She worked as a hot walker and did odd jobs at the racetrack in the summers. When my mother decided to take riding lessons at a local stable, she would bring me along. But whenever I had to leave the barn, I would scream, cry, and throw a tantrum. I started riding when I started walking, and my mother was involved with my riding and showing through my time in high school and college. We’ve sort of done it together. She’s a good horsewoman. Even though I don’t come from a true jumping family, I definitely come from a line of horse people. The exception was my father, George Davis, but he has become a dedicated follower of the sport. He’s likely to start his Sunday mornings watching the live stream of Grands Prix from Europe and is always up on what’s happening there.

Early in my career, I took the usual route through the equitation and the hunters. As I moved up to the jumpers, California trainer Archie Cox helped me. He is an amazing person and horseman, still a very special figure in my life.

When I was 17, I started working with German trainer and world-class rider Markus Beerbaum, which was an important shift, because I committed myself to my dream of being in the Olympics. Markus, a European Championships and WEG medalist, and his wife, Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum, an Olympic, WEG, and European Championships medalist who was a three-time FEI World Cup Finals champion, both know what it’s like to compete at that level. Beyond their system of how they train the horses and take care of them, they always put together a whole program of preparation. We had a two-year plan, a one-year plan, and once I made the team, a three-month plan. It’s all very detailed, something different than I had experienced previously when I was younger and in school.

Experience is helpful in our sport, almost above everything, but I always felt I was prepared, with a really good trainer, Markus, behind me, and my other teammates. I just wanted to go for it.

I knew U.S. Show Jumping coach Robert Ridland from California. I grew up riding at the Blenheim shows, of which he is president. He and I have a little West Coast vibe and have gotten along well because of that. Robert likes to give young people a chance, pairing them with older riders. He’s given me a lot of opportunities. With Robert, if you deliver, you get rewarded.

I had some Nations Cup experience before the 2014 WEG, but the teams for those two types of competition are hugely different. The Nations Cup is always super special, because it’s a team competition for your country. I’ve enjoyed that aspect of it.

The WEG, however, was on a whole other level. At training camp, you get to bond with your teammates. But when you are competing in a championship, there’s no small talk or chitchat. It’s high intensity. For the Rio Olympics, I was two years more mature in my riding, so that was hugely helpful. My teammates—Kent Farrington, Beezie Madden, and McLain Ward—were all, and continue to be, great supporters. I went through the necessary steps to be on that team. They gave me the respect to do what I was doing to continue to be on a team with them. They instilled a lot of confidence in me and were nothing but encouraging.

Things came together for me to start making teams after I bought Barron as an eight-year-old. He had an unwieldy name, so when 25 members of my family were around that Christmas, we voted on a new name and Barron—after my grandfather—was the winner.

Lucy Davis had been dreaming since kindergarten of riding in the Olympics, and when she made the silver medal squad in 2016 aboard Barron, several of her kindergarten classmates journeyed to Rio where they saw her make good on her childhood prediction.

The process of bringing Barron along was rewarding. I could feel he had the ability. Whether he had the brain, the stamina, and the heart could only be proven over time, but luckily, he did.

Actually, Barron has a weird brain—he goes from lazy to crazy; he doesn’t spook at a jump, but he’s frightened of a squirrel on the side of the ring. Any change of environment or weather or location always affects him. You have to see how he’s feeling emotionally every morning; he’s a very quirky horse. But in the ring he’s the bravest, the most careful, and he fights for it.

The 2016 Olympic silver medal team of (left to right) Lucy Davis, Kent Farrington, McLain Ward, and Beezie Madden on the podium in Rio de Janeiro.

At the 2013 World Cup Finals, I was clear in the Grand Prix, and after that, Robert gave me a chance to be on a team at Rotterdam, starting our Nations Cup career while riding with championships multi-medalists Beezie, Lauren Hough, and Laura Kraut. That kicked off our run to the 2014 WEG team.

But my most important ambition, the Olympics, was no foregone conclusion, even after the WEG medal. I had a rough winter leading up to the 2016 Olympics and was in no position to qualify with points for the short list of 10 from which the Games team would be chosen. I feared I had crushed my Olympic dreams.

In Europe, I’d had a lot of bad results, forgetting how to actually ride and becoming over-analytical. The luckiest thing was that my horse was healthy. I was the one who was kind of sabotaging our performance, and it wasn’t good timing. If I think too much about what I’m doing and question the program or the process, it definitely affects the way I ride. I kind of spiraled out of control. Every time one little thing went wrong, I made it into an issue. That’s really easy to do when you work years for something and sacrifice a lot to get there. It’s a very mental sport. You get to a position where you’re so close and every small misstep or error becomes magnified. You can twist everything in your head. I was thinking each mistake meant all those sacrifices I had made over the years were going to amount to nothing.

As soon as I looked at both sides of the coin and accepted I might not make my dreams come true in 2016—or alternatively, that there was a chance I could get on the team—things were back in proportion. I told myself that whatever happened, the work hadn’t been for nothing; that I’ve learned so much and experienced so many great things. Then I snapped out of it and started to do better.

Robert and the selection committee gave me the chance to prove Barron and myself again, and we ended up on the Olympic team. Once I was there, he said he expected as many clear rounds from me as from Beezie, McLain, and Kent. His comments obviously were very special and instilled a lot of confidence in me. I was able to hunker down and go on as an underdog again, something I do better than coming at it on top.

I’m lucky to have already achieved my two main goals in the sport, the WEG and the Olympics. Now I have to set new goals for myself, broader goals. Having experienced the magic of the Olympics, I don’t think it ever will be easy for me to be watching it from the couch. I have to hold out for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics because it’s my hometown, and riding on the team there would be too good to be true. At some point, I’m sure I’ll want to have a family and do everything that is part of that. At the moment, however, I’m pretty career-focused. I’m concentrating on setting myself up to establish a more professional business with the horses as well, not just with The Pony App, but also with my own riding. I’m working for support to sustain it and get some horses to develop.

The next step in my career is starting to train others. Old Salem Farm provided that opportunity. I never saw myself having a big training stable. I didn’t think I had the patience for that, but in the past couple of years, I’ve taken on a few students and enjoyed those more than I anticipated.

Riding is my passion. I’ve been lucky to make it into my profession and do it in a way that works best for me. I’ve designed my life around these horses. I’m looking forward to continuing down that road. The nice thing is, you can do this sport for a long time, so I think my involvement will continue to evolve.