Our latest project at Boyd and Silva Martin’s Windurra in Cochranville, PA is a big, cool water complex. It’s really been a luxury to build it because we flagged what we wanted in the field, then cut into the ground, then ordered the liner to fit that. Normally you work it out on paper and then order the liner, and then you’re less flexible in changing the design. This approach gave us the opportunity to make some changes during the digging process. It’s a big complex: there are mounds, drops, a sort of sheer wall face that’s like something he saw in France, a couple steep slopes, a couple soft slopes. I think it’s around 200 feet from its longest point, but it’s rambling – it’s not a 200’ square box or circle. It’s quite cool.
We also finished the big mound we’ve been working on for the past couple years. Boyd has been getting dirt hauled in for a couple years and it is a MASSIVE pile of dirt. A local excavator did a lot of the initial work, and also helped us with some other things on course like the initial cutting of the water jump. When our crew had some extra time before the Fair Hill International started we were able to get over there and finish up the project.
Boyd says he’s done with the course now, but we’ll see about that – I’d say he’s a full-blown addict! He’s seeing events from all over the world and trying to take that and reinvent it as a useful schooling package. I think he said he had 170 jumps and we delivered more than ten this fall, so he’s up to nearly 200 jumps. That’s on par with any facilities: Tryon, Stable View…that’s a lot of jumps. Boyd’s fun to work for and knows what he wants, and his course is always interesting and always new, and it’s fun to work for someone whose focus is always on quality, not scrimping.
The course is a great model, and in watching it develop we see the traffic coming in, from kids on ponies to four-star riders, and that really encouraged us to do the new schooling course at Stable View in Aiken. It’s a good business model. Note that the Windurra course is closed for the winter, but if you’re planning to head south for the winter, be sure to check out the new schooling field at Stable View when it opens.
-Eric