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22 October: six new faces at Wix’s first indoor driving event this season had reason to grin at the end of the day. Thirty entries filled the list and the six first-timers ranged from juniors Joshua Twitchen, eight, driving one of his mother’s ponies, and Haydn Hughes, 11, Danni Claydon, 15, and “grown-ups” Kerry Slack, Lorna Ingram and Danny Millard. There were classes to suit everyone, from the club “starter” class to the championship qualifiers, from novice single pony and horse through open to multiples, which was dominated from the start by Danielle Twitchen (Joshua’s mum) with her pony four-in-hand.
Carriage driving is a sport where all the family can join in and there were three Bradfords, two Smiths, and three Hughes driving, sharing carriages, grooms or ponies, other members of the families joining in. “Scheduling can be a nightmare”, said organiser Fiona Powell, “but now most people enter online and note what they are sharing, so I try to give everyone time to change over and warm up. It’s competitive yet very friendly and we’ll all help each other.”
Everyone performs the same dressage test (called Precision and Paces or P&P), which is new each season. Some drivers threw away points with poor cornering and inaccurate figures however there were many pleasing performances. After the dressage test, a course of ten pairs of cones was laid out and all walked it to choose their best line. There were very mixed results here, as the score depends on hitting the optimum time and leaving the cones standing. Only junior Tor Bradford and Diana Irwin scored 1 penalty and rather too many drivers had scores in double figures. When everyone has driven the cones course, two obstacles – like mad roadworks barriers – were laid out and everyone walked them to learn their best routes. Then the obstacles are driven twice against the clock.
The juniors stole the day with Tor Bradford (15) winning their class with Templedruid Ginga and just 142.2 penalties, chased by Grace Smith (11) and Pickle. Chris Patrick and his Lusitano Salvador overtook Jill Wood’s Appaloosa Kaz to win the open horse class (159.6). In the open pony class, Sammy Moncur and coloured cob Patsy chased eventual winner Harriet Bradford (162.7) rather too hard, and ended second. Novice horse driver Goldie Francis kept us on the edge of our seats as she and young contender Emma Clayden spun round the obstacles but Emma took the red rosette by 0.7 penalties (178.8). Kerry Slack driving Amanda Wells’ pony Jazz took the club class first time out with 197.2 penalties. Danielle’s team was a joy to watch, smoothly flowing and astonishingly accurate in all three phases and she won the multiples turnout on 180.4 against Nina Snow’s pony pair and two horse pairs in a thrilling finish. Rosettes, kindly sponsored by Tay-Dal Surfacing Ltd, were presented at the end along with vouchers from Kingdon Chiropractic to the class winners. Joshua Twitchen summed up his day as “…better than birthday and Christmas presents.”
Our next event is Sunday, 11 December, from 9 am. It’s free to watch: there’s a nice warm café and a good animal feed cash and carry shop on site so why not drop in and see what it’s all about?
See www.indoordriving.co.uk for more details or call 01473 735732.
I’m a new driver with a new pony,doing well driving out and have some club drives under our belt. all is well. would like to do some indoor cones etc, dont know much about it, looks like good fun.
Hi, I don’t know where you are but if you are in the UK there’s still time to see an indoor driving event near you. Please visit http://www.indoordriving.co.uk and see the events list. We are a very friendly bunch and a posting on the forum might well bring offers to help you learn all about it – or just turn up and chat to people. Come to teh indoor finals at Keysoe, Beds, 30 March – 1 April if you want to see the best of the best! Thanks for your note, Fiona