Our Martin Collins riders have been quite busy wrapping up their summer series, including our business partner & Olympic grand prix show jumper, Sharn Wordley, of Wordley Martin Equestrian.
“ The arrival of Clopf® Fiber & MC Ecotrack® could help the US catch up in advances in footings already enjoyed in Europe”, according to Wordley. His Ocala, Florida based company, Wordley Martin Equestrian LLC. is our partner in US distribution and installation of all footings from Martin Collins Equestrian Surfaces, having been impressed with their performance while competing on the global Grand Prix circuit.
Wordley has lived and ridden in Europe prior to settling in the US. As well as competing at the 2008 Olympic Games, numerous Nations Cups and Grand Prix in 22 countries, he has coached riders to these levels as well. His business partner, Craig Martin, also migrated from NZ to the UK to work with British Team riders Tim Stockdale and William Funnell. Since moving to the US he has been shortlisted for the 2004 NZ Olympic team and has ridden and coached at all the major North American events, but has since shifted his focus from competition to running the daily operations of Wordley Martin Equestrian.
Sharn balances his very busy schedule running Wordley Martin Equestrian in partnership with Craig Martin, who holds down the business operations when Sharn hits the road to compete at the Grand Prix level. During August, Sharn attended two weeks of competitions at the Kentucky Horse Park, which also happens to be the US home base of Glynnie Walford, head of MCES USA. Having Sharn in Kentucky during these two weeks was a relationship building experience for both Martin Collins USA and Wordley Martin. Sharn’s expertise as a horseman is one of the true advantages of this partnership and is an example of how Martin Collins continues to improve their industry position by carefully forming business relationships with experts in the equestrian world.
Sharn had an extremely successful couple of weeks riding multiple horses for two of his primary owners/clients, Fillip Amram and Kaya Didman, both from Istanbul. In addition to his business responsibilities with Wordley Martin, Sharn operates an active training facility out of Ocala, Fl. with approximately 20 horses in work. The string of horses that he took to the Bluegrass Festival (8/17 – 21) and the Kentucky Jumper Association (8/24 – 28) represented a young and enormously talented string of horses for the future. Highlights of the two week horse show series included a win on Upper Class CR in the Young Horse class, a 4th in the $40K Grand Prix on Conan (more coverage here), a 2nd in the $10K Welcome on Cedrick and a 3rd in the $30K GP, again on Conan (pictured here)!
Next up on this busy equestrian’s schedule is a trip with the young horses to the Grand Prix in Knoxville (late September) and then down to West Palm Beach with the more experienced horses, where he will also be able to focus on several footing installations which will be coming to completion in November.