Four in Hand

At the feed store on Saturday I met Chester Weber, the winner of the 2008 silver medal at the World Four-in-Hand Driving Championships. He's also the six-time National Champion for the United States.

Competing with Chester the weekend of Februrary 27 in Ocala, Florida will be my own driving instructor, Bill Long of Southern Pines, NC. Bill is a five-time National Champion and the first American driver to win the Windsor Grand Prix, which offered him the chance to have dinner with Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip of England. He attended the World Championships five times, as well.

The sport these men pursue with their four large horses is more than just a trot through the park. Similar to the ridden sport of Three Day Eventing, Combined Driving Events include a dressage performance, a marathon drive across country, and a cones phase. In the dresssage test, the driver and horses complete a series of patterns within a measured rectangular arena, with emphasis on the precision of their figures and the demeanor of the horses. In the marathon, driver and team not only cover a prescribed course of seven-plus miles, but they must negotiate a series of obstacles, or hazards--I liken them to mazes--which include water and slopes and offer numerous chances for accidents. Finally, the team drives the cones course, a series of "gates" marked by pairs of cones, where each pair must be taken in the correct order and direction. Sound easy? Not!

TBone and I have done some combined driving and hope to again, once he's fit after his foot surgery. TBone's a pony and my carriage isn't big, but I can tell you that getting through those obstacles and the cones course is a real challenge. I watched Bill at a local event recently, and was amazed at the delicate adjustments he could make to the positions of those four great horses, allowing him to whisk through a gate with only air to spare. Talk about driving to an inch! (That's a phrase from Georgette Heyer's Regency novels, some of my favorite books in the world.)

In 2010, the World Championships will be held in Lexington, Kentucky. So exciting! There will be dressage, jumping, vaulting, reining, endurance and, of course, driving. It's going to be the most wonderful event, and available for America to enjoy! We're hoping both Bill and Chester will be there, along with many other fantastic horses and riders and drivers from the U.S. Look it up here and figure out how you can spend a few days in Fall 2010 enjoying the world of horses!