Family Trips with the Meyers Brothers - BOYD MARTIN Flew Olympic Horses Overseas
Episode Date: July 16, 2024Three-time Olympic Equestrian rider, Boyd Martin, joins Seth and Josh on the podcast this week! Boyd tells Seth and Josh all about moving from Australia to the U.S., how he’s always had a passion fo...r horses and riding, the wild names his horses have had, what taking trips was like for him growing up, and of course, his excitement for the 2024 Olympics in France! Family Trips is supported by Airbnb.  Your home might be worth more than you think.  Find out how much at airbnb.com/host Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for DeleteMe. Now at a special discount for our listeners.  Today get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/TRIPS and use promo code TRIPS at checkout. So thanks again to Nissan for sponsoring this episode of Family Trips. Now go find your path, and enjoy the ride along the way.  Learn more at nissanusa.com Download the Gametime app today, create an account, and use code TRIPS for $20 off your first purchase.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
This episode is brought to you by Airbnb.
Here we go.
Hey, Baji.
Hey, Sufi.
Um, excuse me.
Yeah?
Early cough.
That's how people want their podcasts to start, right?
Yeah.
You know what?
Moving forward, I'm going to clear my throat before we start recording.
That's a good idea.
Um, I feel as though you've done me dirty.
Oh yeah.
Last listener episode.
Very hurtful when I, you know, because again,
we do these and then you go off on your own,
you write the song.
Right, it's not an insignificant amount of work.
Right, and then I, you know, this is something,
and again, I'm very lucky you do it entirely by yourself.
You're not running it by me. It basically, the first time I hear it is when everybody else hears it at the end of the episode.
Yeah.
During the last listener episode, I tongue-in-cheek sang a few lines of a song, basically making the point that it's easy to do what you do.
Right. You sang a chorus to a popular song,
taking some of the stories,
some elements from the stories that we had already heard and said,
yeah, this ain't that bad.
Then you then took that without my consent and put it in the song.
Yes. So you're singing all good.
And then I come in and I feel as though you,
without making it a fair fight,
showed who the better singer is.
Yeah. I mean, I don't think anyone's gonna listen to that
and be like, whoa, Josh really has some great pipes.
But don't you think people will listen to it
and say Seth is shitty at singing?
I think they're gonna say you're worse.
And they'd be right.
I mean, it's not like, yeah.
You know, it's funny.
I, you know, obviously I grew up with you
and two other people, mom and dad.
And I would walk through the house singing
and you would all tell me to stop singing
because it was so bad.
Then I met Alexi and I would walk around
the apartment singing and she would tell me to stop singing
because it was so bad.
And then I have three children and now when I sing,
they all tell me to stop singing.
And I just can't believe that three generations of people
haven't recognized my gift.
It might take one more generation. I think your grandkids maybe will say,
Grandpa Sufi, what a beautiful voice you have.
What a beautiful voice. Some people grow into it. Some people grow into it. I also,
I also, this is a booking, our guest today.
The most that has ever come from your side of the ledger. Yeah, there's a big one for our house today.
And I'm saying that because I,
well, I'll be honest, I had some doubts.
Oh, but he's, what a charmer.
Oh, I mean, this is an A plus guest,
but I just want to tip my cap to you and Mackenzie.
We have a Olympic equestrian, Boyd Martin.
Yeah.
He grew up in Australia.
He competes for America.
And it turns out he has a fascinating life
and is just an incredible storyteller.
Yeah.
And also just with the Aussie accent, it's real easy.
Yeah.
It's easy, easy to listen to.
And easy on the eyes if you're watching on YouTube.
Pretty easy on the eyes.
It's true.
Oh yeah.
And hopefully this will be true of everybody who listens.
I am more invested in the US equestrian team
than I thought was perhaps possible.
Yeah, I love the Olympics.
Always have, I get real fired up around the Olympics.
You know, I remember the old triple cast.
I was so excited about that back in the day.
But yeah, I'm jazzed about the Olympics.
I'm excited for the opening ceremonies.
I think that's always,
that's a country putting their best foot forward
on the world stage, showing off.
And I'm excited to see what Paris has up their sleeve.
It's gonna be special to watch.
I do remember like summers,
I remember the summer of the 84 Olympics,
basically spending 16 straight days inside,
just watching the Olympics.
Yeah.
Which maybe is more a comment on how little
I wanted to be outside during the summer,
but I also truly love the Olympics.
So it's very exciting that it's coming up.
And this was a super fun conversation.
Also, just a shout out to our listeners real quick.
Our parents really enjoyed that last one.
And again, they judge you the same
as they judge professionals.
There's no, they don't grade you on a curve.
Yeah, but they're fans.
They're fans of the listener stories.
Yeah.
Also because like the listeners
are always telling stories about trips.
And you know how mom and dad feel about some stories that happen on this podcast that aren't about trips. And you know how mom and dad feel about some stories
that happen on this podcast that aren't about trips.
Yeah, they're real purists, just like their son Posh.
So anyway, keep that in mind if you wanna submit more
because we do wanna keep doing this.
So for listener stories, you can submit video stories
now that we also have a video element for our podcast
to familytrippspod at gmail.com,
or submit your voicemail stories at speakpipe.com
slash familytrippspod.
It is a delight for us to listen to them,
and we hope we have more of them.
And we really do hope you enjoy Boyd Martin.
And yeah, let's go Olympics.
Let's go, yeah.
May whatever country you support represent your nation well.
But also go USA. With the Myers Brothers, family chips.
With the Myers Brothers, here we go.
Yeah.
Hello there.
Hey boys.
Legend.
I don't know about that.
You guys are the legends.
I feel way out of my depth here.
No, no, no.
We're very, very excited about this.
Thank you for joining us.
Oh, thank you for having me, guys.
Yeah, this is very, I mean, obviously,
this is very exciting in my household.
Just for all our listeners,
we'll probably do this in an intro too,
but you are like a legit big deal rider,
like USA rider.
I know you got this Australian accent,
but you've been riding for the US since 09, I want to say. In my own little bubble, in this
tiny little bubble that I live on, I'm like Elvis Presley, but I moved to
America in 2006 and changed my nationality to ride for America in
2009. So that's because you have an American parent that you were able to get?
Yeah.
So my mom's from Springfield, Illinois.
And she was a speed skater.
And it's a funny story, actually.
She went to the university in Minnesota.
And she tells me this story where she wanted to get into the sorority house and she got
denied entry into the sorority house and she got denied entry into the sorority house
and she sat in her room and cried and cried and cried for days and days and days
because she didn't get accepted into this social club.
And then she started skating on the lakes of Michigan or Minnesota or whatever
and then she went to the Olympics.
She went to the Grenoble 1968 Olympics and she met an Australian Nordic skier, a cross-country
skier there from Australia.
And then she chased him back to Australia.
So I was lucky when I was a kid.
I remember I grew up in Sydney and my mom and dad took me to the American Consulate
and said, we can get you a dual citizenship.
And I said, what the hell would I ever need a dual citizenship for?
Fast forward 20, 30 years, here I am.
So how old were you when you got your dual citizenship?
I must have been about 10 or 11 years old.
And I just, you know, a kid from Australia, like you'd never, I mean, it goes to show your parents have a wonderful vision
of what could, might happen in your life.
And yeah, so I moved to America,
came to America on a cargo plane full of horses
in about 2006 and the rest is history, the American dream.
Yeah.
So I have a couple of things.
One, it's so on the nose that when you're sad in Minnesota,
you go skating.
That seems very stereotypical.
Yeah.
It does seem very, not what I've expected,
to know that an Australian would even have
a Nordic skiing team.
Was your father one of the few downhill skiers?
Yeah, no, I think in Australia,
I think there was only three Australians
that went to the Winter Olympics that year.
And he had a job as a Jackaroo, which is like a farming, farming job as a young
man. And there was a Norwegian guy that owned a sheep farm there, that there was a little
bit of snow there and he was a great athlete and he taught him how to cross country ski.
And so he got fit, fit running a lot. And then he basically moved to Norway and trained for the 50 kilometer ski race.
So, yeah, it's nuts.
And you always hear, I mean, you hear about the Olympics being a place, that Olympic village is,
they like, they load that thing up with, with condoms.
Right.
Yeah.
Now, this is the weirdest thing, guys.
Yeah.
You're talking about my parents.
So I'm like, I you're talking about my parents. I know, I know, I know.
I'm trying to close my ears.
It is the most fit people in the world.
They're all so driven.
And to just be put in a village with the best athletes in the world from all over the world.
Like, not only are they, their physiques are incredible, but they're in like great clothes
that their country has put them in.
And I imagine more than a few romances have started in that Olympic Village.
Well it's crazy.
I went to the Rio Olympics and there's a McDonald's there in the Olympic Village.
And at the beginning of the week, no one's going to the McDonald's.
And then after they do their event, the McDonald's is packed.
And funny enough with our sport, equestrian,
I mean, we're old guys, you know,
and a few of them are smoking cigarettes
and they're having a drink at night.
And, you know, they're wandering around the Olympic village
with all these 19, 20 year old buff fit,
beautiful chiseled athletes.
So it's all walks of life there, guys.
It's great people watching at the athletes village.
Do you think your horses are just so upset that you're able to smoke cigarettes and drink a beer?
I don't know. They're a pretty laid back group, the equestrians. So it's a funny sport where it just takes years and years and decades to get really, really good at it.
And then you've got to find the perfect horse, you know, and once you find that perfect horse,
it takes more and more years to become a team and to build yourself up to compete at that
level.
And yeah, I mean, if you're 40 at the equestrian events at the Olympics, you're a young person.
So there's a- Oh, so it's not, so it really is that it, more than the other sports, experiences almost
more than, it kind of becomes the more important line than sort of physical youth.
Yeah, I mean, obviously physical, you know, your balance and your reactions and your core
strength and that's important, but it just takes so long to, you know, find the
right horse and then to learn all the skills to train the horse to get to that level.
And a lot of stars have got to align.
So yeah, it's a pretty cool sport because, you know, I'm turning 45 this year and I feel
like I'm just about to hit my prime.
So a lot of, you know, I'd be all washed up and used up.
I'd probably be a coach or a selector or something
if I was in another sport by now,
but I'm just entering into the sort of the pinnacle
of my career, which is very, very exciting.
Yeah, I was just watching some of the gymnastics trials
yesterday and one of the commentators was interviewing
Simone Biles
afterwards saying at 27, she'll be like the oldest
US woman to go compete in gymnastics.
And I don't know how long, but it was,
it's so strange and awkward to have someone telling someone
who's 27, they're old, but Simone Biles, she knows,
like, because that's the sport.
Like, yeah, obviously no one's gonna do that at 40.
Yeah. How many Olympics will this be for you, Boyd one's going to do that at 40. Yeah. Yeah.
How many, how many Olympics will this be for you Boyd?
Yeah, this is going to be the fourth one. So my first crack at it was 2012 in London.
And then my second go was Rio where they had the Zika virus. And then my third go was Tokyo
when they had the coronavirus. So now we're off to Paris in a week basically.
So it's very exciting. It's a very inspiring competition, you know, like, because you sort
of got all these people that have, they're from every corner of the world that have chased
their dream, if that makes any sense. And they've worked and worked and worked and worked and worked. And then they, you know, somehow, someway,
they all sort of get to this one contest every four years.
And it's an amazing, amazing event just because of the,
you know, the hardships and the sacrifices and the ups and downs
and the highs and lows and a bit of luck, you know,
and everyone sort of congregates at this one epic event
every four years.
What percentage of the people at the Olympics do you think,
I don't want to use the expression happy to be there,
but certainly I would imagine a lot of people genuinely
don't have any expectation of meddling, for example,
that the accomplishment is actually being in that select
few that get to attend these things.
Yeah, it's an interesting point you bring up there, Seth.
And I remember when I made my first Olympic team,
as my mum pulled me aside and said, look, the goal is not just to get picked,
you know, it's to go there and deliver your personal best performance, you know.
And it's something to think about is this mindset of not just being a tourist there,
you know, and sometimes so much energy and effort goes into being called an Olympian
that it's almost everyone sort of exhales before the competition starts.
And it's a, you know, it's a, it's a, it's tricky.
It seems glamorous, you know, and getting ready for the Olympic games, but it's, it's
bloody stressful.
You know, you're, you're training as hard as you can.
You've got all these niggling injuries.
For our sport, your teammate's a horse and a lot can go wrong with your animal.
Then you've got to fly your horse to another country.
And then when it's over, you're like, oh, thank God.
Then you look back on it and you fly back to America
and you're sort of watching the TV
and watching the other events.
And you're like, oh my God, I was just there.
And it's sort of a bit of a blur to be quite honest guys.
Yeah, and just for a little housekeeping
for our listeners who might not know,
you're an eventer, correct?
A three day event.
I'll do a quick explanation of my sport.
All right, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Also, another interesting thing is just that men and women
compete in the same division, the same classes.
Yeah.
I think it's one of the only sports where men and women
compete in the same sport.
And it's the only sport where your teammate
is an animal, a horse.
So it's an unusual competition. But to give the listeners a quick rundown
of our sport, it's basically a triathlon. So on the first day you do dressage, which
I heard you guys talking about it a week or two ago, that it's a 20 meter by 60 meter
arena and it's almost like the floor routine of the gymnastics,
you know, where you've got to go in there and it's judged by all these judges and each
movement is judged and you get all dressed up in a nice tie and a fancy coat and you
look very proper and you sort of get a score for that first phase.
The second phase is the exciting phase.
If anyone's going to watch our sport,
this is the one you can't miss. It's the cross country. It's over four miles, about 35 jumps
and you're going into water, over big logs, up banks, over ditches and you've got to go
flat out with your horse. And that's the exciting part of it. You've got to sort of navigate this course at high speeds and if you're slower than what
they say your time should be, you get penalized and if you miss a jump or if your horse glances
off and runs out at a jump, you get penalized.
And then the final day, the exciting day is the show jumping, which is in a stadium with the colored poles and it's sort of an old military sport where the riders hopefully left enough juice
in their horse to come out and be careful and have enough energy left to jump around
the show jumping course.
And they sort of gather up the three scores of the three events and the person with the best scores the winner.
Is the second day just time or is it also style points?
No style, so it's just time,
but you also get a penalty if your horse,
some of these jumps are very, very skinny
and if your horse glances off or runs off the jump,
they penalize you 20 points or now a lot of the jumps actually,
if you hit, if the horse bumps into them, they, they collapse just for a safety thing.
So that's another penalty.
So it's a little bit confusing to, to sort of follow a score instantly, but the, you
know, to, to make the time or to get zero, zero penalties the cross-country. You've got to you got to go flat out
You got to you got to go as quick as you can and it's it's in a it's a very picturesque place
I think it's a Vesal, Vesil. Yeah, Versailles, Versailles. Versailles. It's amazing.
Now, I don't even know I've never even heard of Versailles so
Which is quite embarrassing. You're gonna have your mind blown.
Boy, you're gonna have your mind blown.
We have a friend who was in the horse business
and had a place in Kentucky and it's in Versailles,
which is spelled Versailles, but in Kentucky it's Versailles.
Right.
Yeah, they didn't put the French on it.
Hopefully no one turns up there to watch.
Can you tell early in the competition, Boyd,
if your horse is on their game?
Yeah, it's interesting.
You basically spend hours and hours and hours with your horse.
You train the horse probably for a little bit over an hour
every day.
And then to get to this level is just years and years and years.
So it's interesting.
Like any teammate, when you're in a good mood, a bad mood, you know, like any teammate, you know, when you're
in a good mood, a bad mood, you know, when you're feeling good, you know, when you're
feeling fresh, you know, and so definitely there's this feeling of understanding of how
much energy your horse got and if it's sort of dialed in and concentrating or if it's
sort of looking around and spooking at all the cameras and flags and distractions.
So I'm lucky I've got a great horse this year.
His stable name or his barn name is Bruno and his competition name is Fedimum B and
he's a champion.
Like he's a fantastic jumper.
Now wait a second.
Wait a second.
Why, explain to us, this is even more interesting than the three days.
Why does your horse have two names?
Well, a lot of the, a lot of the horses show names are competition,
competition names and ridiculous, like they're full letter word names. And it's so all of our horses have pretty normal state barn names.
So one's called Thomas, one's called Bruno, one's called George.
And it's just, uh, rather than calling him some fancy European name that you can't pronounce
that's got 10 syllables, it's a lot easier just to have the nickname guys, the nickname.
Yeah.
It's like, Seth, our horse is Frankie, but his name is Excel Starlord.
Yeah.
See, I've never even heard Excel Starlord.
Yeah.
Because we call him Frankie.
Yeah.
How old is Bruno?
Get over here.
Bruno is 14.
So, okay.
So, and excuse my ignorance.
Have you had a different horse in all four Olympics?
Yep.
Yep.
My first horse was called Otis.
Otis Barbotier.
The second one was called Red, who was his, his competition name was Blackfoot Mystery.
And then my third horse was called Thomas and his competition name was Sfoot Mystery. And then my third horse was called Thomas.
And his competition name was Sesterleg.
And do they have a physical peak?
Is that why you move from horse to horse over?
Yeah, about they're in their prime about from 12 to 15 or 16 years old.
And so like it so basically takes 10 years to get them to this point. And like any athlete, you've sort of got this window where they're really at their peak.
And then after that, they're, you know, like they start feeling a bit old and the key is
to, to, you know, retire them or find them a home with a younger kid or something before
they decline.
So it's a, yeah, it's a tricky, tricky sport. But yeah, I feel like the horse I've
got is in great condition, but we've got FedEx flies in from JFK Airport into Paris. And
then so it's, they go on a cargo plane and then they stable at a farm about three hours
out of Paris for a couple of weeks while we do some
training there and then we go in and do the business.
The other, we promised not to tell you previous horses.
Do you feel better about Bruno than the other ones?
I don't know.
It's a bit like your kids.
You know, you hate to favor one kid more than the other, but for sure Bruno's the best jumping
horse that I've had.
Like he's an incredible, incredible jumper, which is a huge part of the
sport.
It's sort of two thirds of the competition.
So now, now Josh, Josh, Josh, you're marrying an equestrian.
I am.
Can I just give you a word of warning, mate?
Yeah, please.
Please.
You might be a little late.
Right.
Yeah.
Well, any, any female or male that's infatuated with horses, it's a rollercoaster.
Josh, it's, it's highs and it's lows.
If it's a good day on the horse that you're going to have dinner made, there's
going to be passionate night.
But if it's a, if it's a disappointing competition, mate, you just got to, you
got to weather the storm.
They're like, yeah, I don't know if you know what you're getting into here.
I like to maintain a certain level of equanimity in the home.
I am the cook at home, so I'll have dinner ready.
You might be alright then.
I also, I thought I was feeling good about you Josh,
because I was like, well, you know, she can't do it forever.
And now I'm finding out from Boyd, she's not even at her peak.
She's a kid.
She's a kid.
70.
Hey, we're going to take a quick break
and hear from some of our sponsors.
Family Trips is supported by Airbnb.
Hey, Bashe.
Yes, Sufi.
You know, the Pittsburgh Steelers schedule comes out
and we just immediately, you, me, mom, dad,
start trying to find our weekend. Yeah, we look in that calendar and we just immediately, you, me, mom, dad, start trying to find our weekend.
Yeah, we look in that calendar and then, yeah, we sort of throw our marker down.
And then once we throw our marker down, our next stop is Airbnb because we, last year,
famously, all stayed together under one roof in a wonderful home in Pittsburgh. Years before,
we'd done hotels and it just was such a nicer way to do it.
Yeah, it's nice to wake up, come downstairs,
make a pot of coffee, and then have mom and dad roll out
and have that coffee ready, have some bagels,
just be able to sit around and have breakfast
and feel almost like it would feel
if we were in our own home.
And you know what we had that was really special?
We had a porch swing. Uh-huh. We took photos in a own home. And you know what we had that was really special? We had a porch swing.
Uh-huh.
We took photos in a porch swing.
Yeah.
Can I say something?
Every one of them worse than the last.
And I will say porch swings are wonderful.
They take worse photos than you think.
I think porch swings are good to take photos of children.
I think for adults, it's just all thigh.
You know what I mean?
It was a real meaty, like a lot of meaty thighs in that photo. I think I was standing off to the side. it's just all thigh. Hmm. Yeah. You know what I mean?
It was a real meaty, like a lot of meaty thighs in that photo.
I think I was standing off to the side.
You were smart.
Point is, maybe you're someone right now who's listening and you're like,
I got a poor swing.
I've got one of these houses that has these little details,
the details that I've put a lot of thought into,
and maybe a family would like to come and stay at my place instead of at a hotel.
Your home might be worth more than you think.
Find out how much at airbnb.com slash host.
Family Trips is sponsored by Delete Me.
You know what, Suf?
Yeah, I don't like being followed in life or online.
And ever since I got Delete Me,
I know that someone has my back online.
And a lot of personal information that's out there
is getting scrubbed off the internet
because I have people sticking up for me.
And those people are at Delete Me.
That's really nice to hear, Posh,
because, you know, at this point,
a lot of that personal information,
it's just going to the highest bidder. You know what at this point, a lot of that personal information, it's just going to the highest
bidder.
You know what I mean?
Do you want to hear my impression of a highest bidder?
Please.
I want you to say, next item, Josh Meyers' Social Security number.
Next item, Josh Meyers' Social Security number.
One billion dollars.
Like, who has that kind of money to spend?
I just feel like that's a bad person. That's why, like, the scrubbing, the personal profile,
is no longer theirs to sell.
And that's nice.
It gives me real peace of mind.
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And now this is the guy who's upset that he's delete me has grabbed you.
Ready?
Oh yeah.
Now curse you, delete me.
So you grew up in Sydney and are you growing grew in, I mean, that seems metropolitan,
like where you, did you have a rural part of your childhood?
So we're about 40 minutes out of the center of Sydney.
So we grew up in about on about three acres on the outskirts of Sydney.
And obviously, our family life was was so sport orientated with with both my parents
being athletes.
And in all Australians, I think sport's just a huge part of your upbringing.
And on top of that, I was just a wild, out of control kid that just couldn't sit still
or concentrate at school.
And I mean, it's amazing now living in America.
Like not once did my parents ever in America, like not once did my
parents ever mention university or not once did a teacher ever talk about college. And
as at 17, I finished high school and the next day I was packed my bags and moved off to
train horses, which, you know, we're kind of way sort of, uh, it was a, it was a cool
thing of
knowing exactly what you wanted to do for the rest of your life.
And, and on top of that, I wasn't good at anything else.
So it was, there wasn't like, Oh, maybe I should do this or maybe I should get a degree
in arts or maybe I should, you know, like there was just, and I loved it.
You know, it's, it was, it's hard work.
It's thousands of hours of practice and training, it's always
on the road, you know, going to show to show to show, but it's right from the get-go, I
knew what my calling was.
Was there difficulty in sort of being like 17 and moving into that world, I imagine like 17 through like early 20s
might be wilder years and what I've seen of Australians
in particular, their extra wilder years.
So was it trouble getting up with the horses?
Did you have some rough mornings or were you so laser focused
that that wasn't an issue for you?
No, I was a disaster, Josh.
It was...
Oh, there we go.
I don't know how I survived it, to be honest, mate.
And I'm just so glad social media wasn't around.
And I mean...
Oh man, weren't we all?
And I don't even know how I survived it
because we'd be out late chasing women
and drinking till wee hours.
And then you had to be there at the stable at six in
the morning and getting on the horses, sort of a bit tipsy.
When you're young, you find a way and now in my life, I've figured out about the age
of 35, my body started to fall apart a bit and I did an absolute 180.
I quit drinking, I started doing yoga and stretching and I have a physiotherapist come
to my house every day and I realized pretty soon that if you want to last for, you know,
this is a long career, you've got to start looking after yourself.
And it was a tough transition,
because I was sort of the life of the party
for so many years.
But the key guys is to move to a different country.
You know, like you-
Yeah, where you don't know anyone.
All your crimes have forgotten.
So- Yeah, that's true.
I turned up in America and they're like,
this guy, what a nice fella this guy is.
You know, like well-spoken, clean cut, you know.
It was a fresh start, you know, very good.
Josh and I both live, we lived abroad right after college,
and I do think there's something to be said.
I always tell kids, like, go, you live abroad
because you just, everything you don't like about yourself,
you can just, no one will know.
You can just stop it tomorrow.
All your bad habits can go out the window.
And we had so many friends that, like,
we lived in Amsterdam
for a few years, Boyd working for a comedy theater.
Oh, that would have been great.
Pretty much right out of college.
And a lot of people showed up there and just sort of like
took on new personalities, like absolutely just shed
their former skins.
And although they, for the most part adopted something
wilder, they weren't looking to sort of present a clean cut.
I do also think that that's the, you know, look, if you can,
like if you try and fight those urges, like eventually,
like there's going to be that little voice in your head saying,
come on, mate, just, like, I don't know, like, I feel like you've got to learn through experience,
you know, and making mistakes and, you know, growing up and doing, you know, like, and if you can
flush it out of your system then and there, then you realize that, okay, this is what
I shouldn't be doing, you know, and often I see, you know, when we're talking about
the Olympics, I mean, these, you know, you go to the Olympics and you see the gymnasts
in the, in the food hall and there's someone over them watching them making sure that they eat
one piece of lettuce, you know, and they sort of they sort of lock it all in and
you wonder if they probably do the reverse of what we did and go wild once
they're all washed up at 30. I mean one of my friends, Neil Brennan, who's a
comedian, his new special, he said that when they cut to the figure
skaters with their coaches, it looks like a hostage video.
They're like the youngest kids and like crazy makeup.
Somebody just gave them one rose.
Yeah.
Nuts.
So, but what age did the love affair with horses start?
So if you're 17, you know that's what you want to do.
So basically when I was growing up, we did all sports growing up.
You know, I was playing rugby and cricket and then because we had three acres, there
was a pony club down the road.
And in Australia, horses are, it's a real guy sport.
You know, it's different to America where it's like a real girl sport with ponytails
and ribbons and stuff. I don't know, I feel like after I got off the school bus, we'd race down,
I'd throw a saddle on my pony and we'd meet all my friends down the bottom of the street and we'd
go galloping and racing through the national park and jumping, falling over trees and jumping like people's
trash cans on the side of the road and that sort of how it started.
And then as time went on, I just actually, not just the sport, but just fell in love
with this connection with horses.
It sounds like you grew up a hundred years ago.
Right. Just like that.
Were your parents, did they have any concern about your love of horses?
No, I mean, I was lucky.
So I coach a fair few younger people now and their parents, which is a proper concern.
Like if their child comes back and say, hey, mom and dad, I want to do horses for a job, they're
like, you know, because the terrifying thought of your kid spending years and years and years
chasing a passion that ends up to being zip is like, oh my God, my kid's 30 years old
and they've realized that they can't make money out of this and they, you know, that
it's not quite what I mean mean it's a terrifying thought but both my parents,
they left home at a young age and chased this dream of being a speed skater in America and
a cross-country skier in Australia. So when I said that I wanted to do horses for a career,
though they thought it was the greatest idea ever. But I was in a very unique situation, you know,
with parents that had been professional athletes.
So I think I...
Yeah, it's not like your parents could say,
you need to do something with a long-term future,
like speed skating.
Yeah.
So I was lucky.
I was lucky and it was a...
You know, I had a fair bit of luck on the way too.
I mean, I've, you know, I've come across a lot of good horses.
I've been injured a lot and I've come back and I've been sort of successful.
I've figured out how to make, make a sort of a modest income out of the whole,
whole, um, the whole industry.
And, uh, yeah.
And coming to America was a huge thing.
Like this is a great, great, great, great country.
If you've like, look at you two guys,
like if you've got a dream
and you want to be good at something,
this is the country where they,
in other countries they'd be like,
what do you want to do that for?
You're not going to, you know, in America,
like they're, yeah, right on, we're behind you, boy.
You know, like it's a...
I love it.
Were you embraced right away? Do you feel like? I think so. You know, like it's a... I love it. Were you embraced right away?
Do you feel like?
I think so, you know, I think in the little bubble
that I live in, there's, if you're hardworking
and determined and a character,
people love getting behind you.
And I've been so, so blessed with, you know,
these horses nowadays, they're so expensive
to get top quality horses and the nowadays, they're so expensive to get
top quality horses and, uh, and the costs are, as Josh is about to find out that the cost of owning
a horse is, uh, I've found out boy. Yeah. Right. So, uh, yeah. Uh, you better keep going with
his acting career, Josh, because, uh, you, because it's, uh, it's, uh, you know, it's an,
it's an expensive sport.
So you need people to back you and get behind you.
And this country is the greatest country in the world for that.
Are you in Pennsylvania now, Boyd?
Yep.
We're in a small town called Cockrenville, Pennsylvania that has a service station and
a pizza shop.
What part of Pennsylvania is that? So we're about, if we jumped in the cut, it's about, we're 40 minutes west of Philadelphia Airport.
So Philadelphia's a big city.
And is that where, when you moved, is that where you moved to?
Yeah, so there was basically one other Australian guy that came here with horses and a friend of a friend knew him and I got
a job with him.
Quick guest start.
Hey Mackenzie.
Hey pal.
I just wanted to take back everything I said about.
Oh no.
Well I was warning Josh what he's getting into.
I'm just about to leave for the barn.
Right, right.
Well he knows what he's getting into.
Let's just say that.
Oh yeah.
At this point, there's no turning back.
I can't hear anything that's being said
on the other side right now, so everyone has.
He's playing both sides.
He's playing you and he's playing me.
I'll let you guys get back to it,
but so good to see you.
All right, good to see you, mate.
You too, Soothe.
Good to see you too.
Oh my God, when Boyd's around, I barely get a hello.
Yeah, no.
He's the Hollywood star in our world.
I get it, I get it.
Bye, guys.
See you, mate. Bye.
So just to transition here,
because you are obviously talking about Josh
marrying a horse person, somebody married you,
you're a horse person, but they are as well, correct?
Yeah, married a German.
And I mean, if you want structure in your life,
discipline, a clean house, you marry a German.
I married a German dressage rider.
She was a smoking hot German that came to Australia.
And there's not many smoking hot Europeans
that make it all the way to Australia and there's not many smoking hot Europeans that make it all the way to
Australia.
And basically every legitimate young man threw themselves at this young lady and I was lucky
she didn't know English that well at the time.
So I sort of rang them away in there and it worked out really well guys.
She just does dressage.
She just does our first phase of our sport, which is the ballet part.
I feel like I was just told that the Germans are sort of the dominant country in dressage.
Is that true?
Dominant, dominant, dominant riders, dominant people.
She cracks the whip. We've got, you know, it's
chalk and cheese basically. Australians are pretty laid back and you know, they shit everywhere
you know, in their house and they don't really care how they look. And then the Germans,
like it's just everything. They're beautifully presented. The house is spotless. And so, so we've got three kids, three boys in there.
They sort of got a little bit the Australian personality from me and then a bit of German
discipline from the mother.
So how old are you three right now?
I feel like we're pretty lined up.
Yeah.
So the oldest one is eight years old, then there's a five year old and then a and then a nine-month-year-old. So it's chaos.
So we're K6 and 2. We're almost exactly the same.
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not sure how your place is, Seth, but our place is chaotic. There's
not a quiet moment under our roof. It's not very quiet here as well. But I'm
very happy to say that all three of them are
out of the house right now or else a podcast would be impossible.
All right, yeah.
I had to come to a friend's house to do this.
So now obviously you met your wife in Australia, so you guys made the decision to move to the
States together?
Yep.
Yep.
Which is, so we got married on December 28th.
That's my brother's birthday.
That's Seth's birthday.
Beautiful. Great things happened on the 28th of December.
And then we both moved to America on January 1st.
The only problem was that she'd applied for her American,
she applied for American residency in Australia.
So we got to the airport and they said,
you've got to stay in the country that you applied
for your green card in until it gets accepted.
So she then went and moved in with my mother
and I didn't see her for three months.
It was sad.
Wow. But at the same time, here's a funny story for you is at the same time, so my move
in, she's living with my mother and then there was a lady there that was helping feed the
horses that was borrowing my mom's computer.
And this lady was trying to find herself a date, you know, and so she was, she was on, on, on the
computer on eharmony.com and she's chasing a man to fall in love with.
And of course my mother's on the computer later that day and she sees the history of
the, you know, the computer.
And meanwhile, my new wife, who's forced to live with my mother for a couple of months is living in the computer. And meanwhile, my new wife, who's forced to live with my mother for a
couple of months, is living in the house. And my mom thinks it's my new wife that's
chasing a new partner very early. And she didn't say a thing. And then eventually, like
months and months later, she realized after Silver, my wife had moved to America, that it was actually the person borrowing the computer. So it must have been a bit awkward for my mother.
It's very awkward. It's also a very strange decision to just keep that to herself.
Even though she was in the wrong, I'm glad she did keep it to herself.
Yeah, it was weird.
It was weird if you guys had gotten divorced, she would have been like,
you know, I always thought it was a problem. She was hardcore looking for another dude
as soon as you moved.
So anyway, yeah, so I moved to America and,
yeah, we had a pretty good marriage
for the first couple of months.
We didn't argue once.
Good work.
It was great.
Hey, we're gonna take a quick break
and hear from some of our sponsors.
This episode of Family Trips is brought to you by Nissan.
Hey Sufi, let's play a quick game.
I'm going to say a word and we both say the first word it makes us think of at the same time.
Ready?
I am ready poshie.
Alright, first word, cereal.
Killers.
Alright.
Okay, we thought of different cereals.
Okay.
Yeah, that's going to happen, but maybe let's try to lock in.
Let's try to mind meld here.
Next word. Museum.
The Louvre.
Gift shop as one word.
Okay. I said the Louvre. You said gift shop.
I know we can be better at this. Let's try one more. All right?
Okay.
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That's what it sounds like when you read to your kids.
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Here we go.
So, all right, so you, what sort of,
I feel like Australians, a lot of the Australians I meet
start traveling abroad on their own.
Like, you know, sort of after they finished school. Yeah.
Did you ever leave Australia?
Did you ever go on trips with your family?
I mean, I guess you had an American mom.
Did you ever come to the States when you were little?
A little bit, yeah, to visit the, we went to Springfield, Illinois to, to visit the,
visit the family here.
And then as a young guy, I got a job in Japan actually, starting young horses and went there and I
had to completely be a bit of a con.
Like my friends had all listen, the job in Japan is starting baby horses and we call
it breaking in or getting them started with a saddle and I'd never really done it before.
And said, no, no, you'll be fine.
You'll be fine.
You'll get it.
You'll be fine. You'll be fine. You'll get it. You'll be good.
So I flew first time overseas, flew to Japan and yeah, for three months then they thought
I was the expert horse starter, you know, as a, and I hadn't done a thing.
You know, I read a Monty Roberts book on the plane and I really had to, you know, con my
way through it.
And that, you know, they had people videoing me doing all my horse
starting and it was crazy.
I say for three months I broke in 60 horses and I'd never done it before.
So that was sort of a learned by experience.
But to answer your other question, we had a, as a young, young family, my, my parents
took my sister and I who I've got an older sister and they took us to our family holiday was to Nepal and we flew into Kathmandu and you know it was
maybe the second time I've been out of Australia and to a third world country.
It was an amazing experience you know you're lucky to get there and there's just immense
poverty and everything and then we got a helicopter to
a place called Nampshe Bazaar and then we spent 12 days hiking as a family to the base camp of Mount
Everest. And at the time, I mean, I look back on it now and think, wow, what an experience, you know,
and at the time I was like, all my friends are sitting on a beach in Fiji
and surfing and sunbaking and then, you know, we're hiking hours and hours every day to get to the
bottom of a mountain. Yeah, and we're sleeping in tents and like we're eating soup out of a freaking
can and, but it was an was an amazing trip just because looking back
on it now is like an inspiring thing of seeing what the rest of the world really lives like.
And I think I'd like to do it with my kids when they're old enough to do it. Because
at the time, as I said, it was just a grueling trip
and I was sort of grumpy and angry
of why my parents do this to me.
But now, looking back on it years later,
I said, holy crap, that was amazing.
So heartbreaking as a parent to know
that you have to suffer through 12 days of your kid
being so irritating, knowing that it won't be
for another 30 years before they're like,
that was really nice. Yeah, it was crazy, it be for another 30 years before they're like that. That was really nice.
Yeah, it was crazy, it was crazy.
Did you hire Sherpas for that?
Yeah, so we had a Sherpa that lugged,
and yaks, basically, but you know,
lugged the tents and the bags and stuff along,
and I think I was 12 years old, so.
Okay.
I mean, I'm sure, I think we were walking for six or seven hours a day, but it was low, low, not much altitude. So you're huffing and
puffing because there's not much air. And it was a remarkable, remarkable experience when considering,
you know, I was a young boy that was spoiled in life of growing up in Sydney,
Australia. So it's a pretty cool, cool thing to look at.
How much older is your sister?
She's two years older. She's a, she's an ultra marathon runner. She lives, she actually lives,
she lives in Vancouver, Canada. And she, she goes around the world running these hundred mile running races. So she's nuts.
Absolutely nuts.
I couldn't imagine doing what she does.
She runs and throws up and hallucinates and keeps...
Did you guys get along growing up?
Yes and no.
I mean, I think we have a great relationship now, but we're a high energy family and we,
you know, we're like all brothers and sisters, we're at each other, but we also had a common
respect for each other and we have a great relationship now.
But we, yeah, so it's pretty cool.
Actually we went to visit my sister.
She's in Whistler, Canada last year.
So we took all our kids there and you know,
it was freezing cold just before Christmas.
Like it had never been so cold.
Like you breathe and like, it's like smoke
coming out of your mouth.
And anyway, it was amazing.
We skied for a couple of days and then we had to get back to Pennsylvania here for Christmas.
And you know, we get to the weather got really, really cold and we got to Vancouver airport
and every flight is canceled and the kids are screaming and they want to get back to
Christmas.
So we hire a car, we drive to Seattle and Seattle was supposed
to be three or four hours driving. It took us 10 hours. Like it's the roads, I see there's
cars sliding off the road. We get to Seattle airport and I mean, it looked like a refugee
camp. Like every flight in the world is canceled. The people sleeping there for days on the
phone screaming at travel agents and the poor people that the, you know, putting the bags in the world is canceled. The people sleeping there for days on the phone,
screaming at travel agents and the poor people
that the, you know, putting the bags on the thing
and just getting yelled at.
And we basically spent two days in Seattle Airport,
which with young children, it's not very glamorous.
But eventually- Were you there for Christmas?
No, on the Christmas Eve,
we got a morning flight out of Seattle
and we made it back home for Christmas Eve.
So it was brutal. And this is this year?
This was two years ago, sorry.
Okay, gotcha. So you didn't have the nine month old yet.
We had two kids, two kids,
which was a great ski trip,
but the last three and a half days was brutal. Absolutely brutal.
There's no level of skiing good enough to make it worth that.
By the way, I am so, I'm actually relieved to hear your sister's an ultra marathoner.
I feel like the worst answer, if she had also had two Olympian parents and an Olympian brother
and the answer was like, she's an accountant.
Yeah, right, right.
Yeah, be a bit of a tough one to talk about.
When did you, but now I'm curious,
when do you feel like you could tell
that was your sister's thing?
Was she just an incredible runner when you were growing up?
I think she was, you know, she was into all sports with us.
And then she really went after skiing, you know,
with her parents being Winter Olympians,
she moved to Canada and she's become a top
ski instructor.
And then she, you know, she loved running and running and running and then she fell
into it.
And you know, it's like any obsession, it becomes a bit of an addiction.
And I can't get my mind around it, but the training is just brutal.
And then they go to these races and they're running for 18 hours straight without sleep.
And it's, but she just keeps doing it and doing it and they're injured.
They're so injured all the time.
It's incredible.
And then it's a bit of a cult, you know, they have a race in Utah, and then there's another race in the Blue Mountains
in Australia, and then there's, you know, like,
and so it's, they sort of have this world tour.
I will say, for a horse person to call someone else
in a cult, you know it's bad.
Yeah, exactly.
You mentioned overcoming injuries, Boyd,
what was your worst equestrian injury that you had to do?
Well, this is the worst part.
I've had 18 broken bones, What is your worst equestrian injury that you had to do? Well, this is the worst part.
I've had 18 broken bones and I've had 24 surgeries now.
But don't forget, this is over 30 years.
So at the moment I've got a-
There was no amount of years where that number was okay.
Right.
So at the moment I've got a plate in this collarbone.
I've got a plate in this collarbone.
I've got a plate down this arm. I've got a plate in this collarbone, I've got a plate in this collarbone, I've got a plate down this arm, I've got a rod in this leg, I've got three screws in
that ankle and I've got two screws in this arm.
And to answer your question, the broken bones are the easy ones.
They heal six weeks later, you're good to go.
The worst ones I think is I've had my abductor muscle
torn off my, off the bone, you know, your groin muscle. That's happened
twice and that has been brutal. Anything soft tissue, I've tore some ligaments in
my ankle and they just never ever get back to being perfect. And is it
just coming off the horse over a jump?
Yeah, basically.
Yeah, you're basically riding at very high speeds
at a fixed obstacle.
And when it goes well, fellas, it's just beautiful.
It's like, now there's a moment where there's a little
miscalculation and then all of a sudden,
and usually you sort of land on your,
I've broken my collarbones four times,
you know, like you land on your shoulder
and this snap, so it's, yeah, it's a hazardous job,
hazardous job.
Yeah.
Do you, I mean, it's fascinating to me,
but you know, Mackenzie has been injured so far fewer times
than me in my life.
And I always am telling her, please be careful.
And she's like, you're the one that gets hurt.
Like I just get, I get hurt living my life.
Yeah, doing jack shit.
Like, yeah.
She did get bucked off a couple of days ago.
She did, so.
Yeah, it's a humbling sport, guys.
It's, when everything, you know, it goes in waves where everything's just going well.
All the horses are working well, they're jumping well.
And then you go through months where it's just every second day you're getting thrown
off or your horse slips and you tumble off or you hit a jump and you fly over the...
But now they've got these airbags you ride
in now, which is pretty cool. Now they stole it from the Formula One motorcycles where
you've got like a vest on, a jacket on, and then it's got an air canister in it. And then
that air canister's clipped to your horse. So you're galloping along and if you fall
off in 0.4 of a second or 0.2
of a second, this air canister goes boom.
And you, you look like the Michelin man.
All of a sudden this massive vest pops up and it pops up and you basically bounce off
the ground.
It's been a incredible technology.
And it really, I don't want to say it makes it fun,
but like you hear this massive bang
and then you sort of bounce as you hit the ground.
I mean, I will say based on everything you've said too,
so far that might make more people watch the question.
Well, the best, I know it happens sometimes
that people forget to disconnect that from the horse
and they just get off the horse and it goes up
and then you look like a dummy.
Yeah, that's happened a few times to me, Josh.
You know, you get off your horse and boom, you know.
Yeah, which the horse probably spooks.
Yeah, there's a linear to attach the horse
and just as you're hopping off it,
and it sounds like a shotgun, you know,
so the horse jumps back and then you fall over.
I feel like everyone who does a medal should have to do it.
Yeah, that's not a bad idea, yeah. back and then you fall over. I feel like everyone who does a medal should have to do it. Yeah.
That's not a bad idea.
Yeah.
Do you, did you guys take trips in Australia?
Did you take like local trips, weekend trips
when you were growing up at all or?
Yeah.
So I'll tell you one other.
So basically another family trip was,
and this was, I was a little bit older.
I must've been, maybe in early twenties.
My parents were huge cyclists and we flew to a place called Ayers Rock, to a place called
Uluroo.
Yeah, Alice Springs, which is 400 miles north of Ayers Rock or Uluroo.
And we cycled in the middle of summer through the desert from Alice Springs to Uluru, which
it took about four or five days.
Basically, cycling probably 90 kilometers a day, which should be about, I don't know,
60 Ks a day, and then staying in pubs at night and probably drinking 15 schooners of VB beer and then
waking up early in the morning and cycling.
And again, it was a bit like our Nepalese trip where I'm like, what the hell are we
doing this for?
And it was in the middle of summer and it was over 120 degrees by lunchtime.
But then you look back on it, you're like, what a great, great experience.
I feel like at the very least,
you were well within your rights
if your kids were complaining in the Seattle airport
to say, you know how much worse you could have it?
You could be on a bike.
Your bags could be on a yak right now.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, you don't know how good you got it here
in the baggage claim.
Yeah, you get on that baggage claim another lap there.
Yeah, entertainment.
Yeah.
See if you can stop crying.
Are your parents still with us?
My father unfortunately passed away in a bicycle race in 2011, just before the London Olympics.
And my mom's still going strong.
She's still living in Australia.
She's taken up golf and become a golf fanatic
and she's playing golf six days a week.
Does she travel to see you?
A little bit, yeah.
So she's gonna meet, she's gonna come to Paris
with my sister and cheer us on.
Oh great.
Where I'm gonna take my oldest son.
I feel like he's sort of at the age where it could, you know,
he gets it and it's inspire him maybe.
And yeah, it's pretty cool.
Are you going to stay in the village with no AC
or are you going to figure out something else better?
No, usually the, one of the great thing
about being American is they look after you.
Like I, you know, all the, let's see, Usually, one of the great things about being American is they look after you.
You get so many clothes.
You don't have to buy another piece of clothing for about five years if you're American.
It's bags of Nike stuff and Ralph Lauren and all this.
All my buddies that ride for Australia, they like get one t-shirt,
you know, and this crappy little baseball cap, you know, and then accommodations. Our
event is sort of on one side of Paris and the athletes village, I think, so a couple
hours on the other side of Paris. So the Americans, we were staying in a hotel
that we could walk across the road.
So I mean, at Rio, I love staying in the Athletes Village.
I felt it was so inspiring and cool,
but logistically wise, it's kind of nice
just being able to roll out a bit
and go across to the stable and get on the horse.
And when do you go?
When do you make your trip?
Next week, next week.
So me and Bruno fly over together on a cargo plane.
You fly in with them?
Yep. And then I've also got, we've got a, each horse has sort of a groom.
So I've got a girl called Steph Simpson that sort of manages my whole operation.
And we're lucky we've got a reserve horse as well called Connor.
And he's there on standby if anything went wrong with Bruno.
So I've sort of-
How long have you worked with Steph? How long is that?
She's been here seven or eight years.
So she's from Vermont, from a dairy farm, you know, dairy farming background and hard worker and
great sort of business partner to be on.
And you need an awesome group of people around you.
There's this team of people around you.
You need coaches and the grooms and then your health people.
It's a village.
You turn up to the Olympics and it's just you there, but it's a mountain of people,
the owners of the horses and it's a massive
operation.
So do you always travel with Bruno when he flies to an event?
Usually Stephanie, my head girl, she usually travels with horses and she usually gets there
just a day or two early.
So they're very fit the horses.
So they travel very well.
And if you could think of a, say a horse was in a trailer, it's stopping, starting, and
it's turning left and it's turning right.
It's, you know, where once they're in the air, basically, it's very still travel for
the horses.
So traveling the horses to Europe is six or seven hours and it's very easy on them, you
know, like so they usually need about one or two days just to chill out and recover and have an easy
day or two of just rest and recovery and then we can start training them again a couple
days after that.
So it's a weird dynamic where you go into this final training camp and we have 40 horses
in work and it's all day every day.
And then all of a sudden you're there for a couple of weeks with one or two horses.
You know, you're sort of so used to being frantic all day that it's very, it's kind
of nice for the first day or two because you get to sleep a lot and take it easy.
But then you're nervous as hell and you end up drinking
too much coffee and it's tough.
How many equestrian athletes are on the US team and do you know them fairly well?
Yeah, so there's three on the team.
An American guy called Will Coleman, he's down in Virginia, and we were together on
the London team in 2012 and then we have a girl from
upstate Pennsylvania called Carolyn Pukuku and she's sort of the younger, newer person on the
team and they've both got great horses and if everything goes well, we've got a real good
chance here. You know, like if all the stars align and we sort of, all three of us put in our best performance,
like they sort of gather up your three team scores
and whoever, that's where the team medal comes from.
And then there's also an individual medal
just on the sort of standing, so.
And the individual, it is not for the,
there's not different medals for each event.
It is like all cumulative. Gotcha. Yeah, but you could, if the not for the, there's not different medals for each event, it is like all cumulative.
Gotcha.
Yeah, but you could, if, you know,
the best outcome would be you get a team medal
and an individual medal, of course.
Yeah, so.
Well, I think this is gonna be very exciting
for people who have not ever paid attention to it before.
I think this has been incredibly informative.
It's been such a joy to talk to you, boy.
Oh, same goes here, guys.
It's a real privilege being on a show with you two, so.
We got a couple questions.
I'm gonna roll through here.
This is a rapid fire question.
All right.
Although the third one gets a little tricky,
but we'll see how we do.
You can pick one of these.
Is your ideal vacation relaxing, adventurous,
or educational?
Adventurous.
I had a feeling.
I would have been shocked if it was something else.
What's your favorite means of transportation?
Train, plane, automobile, boat, bike, on foot, horse?
Yeah, you gotta put me on a horse there.
No, actually, that'd be, I'm sitting on a horse all day.
Give me a train.
I'm gonna just sleep on the train, look out the window
and enjoy myself. Very good, yeah, yeah. I'm going to just sleep on the train, look out the window and enjoy myself.
I mean, transportation, you probably aren't going from,
you're not going up to Philly next week via horse.
Traffic's too rough there.
Yeah.
All right, this one's tricky.
If you could take a vacation with any family,
alive or dead, real or fictional,
other than your own family,
what family would you like to take a trip with? Tough one, real or fictional, other than your own family, what family would
you like to take a trip with?
Tough one, mate.
Tough one.
Yeah.
I would pick a, I would love to get in the mind of like an idol of mine.
Like not, I don't want to call him an idol, but I am fascinated with Lance Armstrong, like his
story of growing up in Texas with a teenage mother and then again chasing this dream of
being a champion cyclist and then going to Europe and falling into this terrible situation
where he was in a position where he had to make some terrible decisions and then this
just this ongoing lie and being such a unique person and idol in the sport.
And then the last part of it is that the last five years, which I've enjoyed listening to
his sort of reflection on how he's, you know, he basically came out as a crook and a cheat
and everyone hated him.
And I don't know, like I'd be fascinated to sit on a beach with him and quiz him on if
he's a happier person now that it's all out there.
And if he, I don't know, I'm sort of fascinated with his story just because I'm a bit of a
sports person, obviously myself and had a journey
where you've chased your dream
and his went to epic proportions
and then went from there to rock bottom.
And then now he's sort of relevant again
as reflecting on his life of glory, but also disaster.
Yeah, I will say I was in-
I went to Aspen a few years ago
for the Super Bowl with some friends.
They like, one of them knew a guy who had a house.
So we went and we bumped into Lance Armstrong
in a restaurant and he had hosted SNL, Seth?
He did, yeah.
So he like recognized me and he's like,
hey, your brother was so nice.
And like, so right away I was like, oh, great.
And then he's like, do you guys want to come over?
And we went over to his house and he made me a lancerita.
The Lance Armstrong Margarita.
And yeah, I was really charmed by him, I will say.
It's an incredible story though.
Like, I don't know.
Like I know he's got millions and millions of people that hate him, but I don't know like I mean I know he's got of millions and millions of people that hate him but I I don't know I admire
him and I also admire how he's it would be very easy just to dig a hole and hide
for the rest of your life and I don't know he did a lot of good too so yeah
probably has more to weirdly more to teach people now than he has before
because that's a I think redemption is, very few people lean into it
as a possible path forward.
Yeah, I agree.
And he has like, he went quiet for a couple of years,
but then he's come back and I don't know,
there's a lot of things to admire of his story.
Yeah, a great, great answer.
All right, if you had to be stranded on a desert island with one member of your family, who would it be?
I'm gonna get killed if I don't save my wife.
All right, yeah.
So I want it on that island and I want some oil
if she could just give me a back massage.
So now you're gonna- Under the palm tree.
You're gonna get killed anyway.
And what town are you from in Australia?
I'm from Sydney, a little town on the outskirts of Sydney called Terry Hills.
All right.
Terry Hills or Cherry Hills?
Terry.
Terry Hills.
Would you recommend Terry Hills as a vacation destination?
Absolutely not.
But from Terry Hills, about 20 minutes down the road is Manly Beach.
And if anyone's hanging out on the Northern Beach is Manly.
I was born in Manly Hospital and Manly Beach is not far from Terry Hills and I'd recommend
going there.
All right, very good.
And Seth has our last questions.
Have you been to the Grand Canyon?
I have not been to the Grand Canyon.
I'm gonna guess your answer,
but I'm gonna ask it anyway.
Do you wanna go?
I would go.
I would go as long as,
if I was in Las Vegas gambling all night
and won hundreds of thousands of dollars.
I would wander out of the casino and hire a private plane to go me through the Grand
Canyon.
I wouldn't walk it though, I don't think, Seth.
This is great.
I was, I mean, I was awesome.
Seth would do it that way.
Yeah.
Also that you would not do a helicopter.
I didn't even know.
You'd do a plane.
You'd really just buzz it.
Yeah, private jet is cool. I will tell you though, if I want a bunch of money,
if I want a bunch of money in Vegas
and then like blacked out and woke up the next morning
and found out I spent it on a trip to the Grand Canyon,
I'd be so mad.
How drunk did I get?
How did that happen?
The Grand Canyon sounded like a good idea.
Well, this has truly been a delight
and it's so exciting.
Not that I didn't before,
but to have a personal rooting interest
will be a great benefit to all of us.
Not just us, but everybody listening.
Yeah, good luck out in Paris.
We'll be rooting for you, Boyd.
You gotta be careful saying that to Australians.
Oh yeah, well, I don't like to say break a leg to Equestrians.
No, rooting's got a different meaning in Australia.
Oh, sorry.
I hope you're rooting for me, but.
Gotcha.
So what would an Australian say
before someone competes in the Olympics?
Go and break a leg, mate.
They do. So you would say break a leg,
even if somebody's broken 24 bones.
Yeah, I say that to Mackenzie, and she always gets mad at me, but not Australian. A leg might. They do. So you would say break a leg, even if somebody broke 24 bones.
I say that to Mackenzie, and she always gets mad at me,
but not Australian.
You know what, I mean this in an environment,
go break another leg.
All right, thanks, Seth.
Well guys, it's been a pleasure to talk to you,
so thank you for having me on.
All right, thank you.
Safe travels, success.
Extra special thanks to Mackenzie,
who was right knowing how good this would be.
So thanks to her, and thanks to you.
Thanks Boyd.
Say it fellas. You won't believe what his parents did While all his friends were on the beaches
He was hanging with the Nephiles
Six hours a day, that was the plan You eat your soup right out the can
A sherpa hauled the bags he packed
The earth thing else, they had a yak
They had a yak
Freezing to death while you sleep in a tent
Not to the summit, this was not vacation. A twelve day trip with family, Mount Everest school, but it's no Fiji.
From Alice Springs to Uluru was another trip boy he had to do.
Jealous of all his pals out there surfing.
All those pals out there surfing
Upon reflection they were both so worth it Thanks again to Nissan for sponsoring this episode. Learn more at NissanUSA.com.