About Carriage Driving - Driving Trials

Presentation and Dressage

The Dressage is designed to test the skill of the driver and the obedience and paces of the horse(s) in an arena 100m by 40m for teams and 80m by 40m for singles. Set movements, such as circles, serpentines and straight lines have to be executed at set paces. It is is very much like ridden dressage with turns and circles, halt and rein back although of course the dressage arena is a little larger than that for riding. Obedience and lightness is an assessment of the horse‘s willingness to accept all three aids of driving: reins, voice and sometimes whip.

The judges, amongst other things, are looking for accuracy of steering, both one-handed and two-handed, correct use of voice and whip, smooth transitions from one pace to another, and regularity of pace. A mark is also given for overall impression of presentation while the dressage test is being driven. The judge determines whether the horses are well groomed, the cart and the harness are clean and properly maintained and the people concerned are decently and appropriately dressed. This emphasis goes back to the great history of carriage driving and its traditions.

Marathon
The Marathon route, with contrasting hilly and flat sections is a demanding test of the stamina of both drivers and animals. It requires a tough modern vehicle with disk brakes and a stronger harness. Driver and grooms are obliged to wear helmets and the horses are well booted up for protection on narrow turns and rough ground. There are up to five stages which can be a few kilometres or more kilometres depending on the level of competition. These stages are timed and vary in pace. The first stage will be a trot which will be followed by a walk, then another fast trot , then another walk. The final section contains the obstacles. 

Obstacle Course
The obstacles are the most important part of the competition. Each of the obstacles must be a challenge to both small single ponies and the large horse teams. This means that they usually contain a mixture of possible routes; short narrow routes for ponies, longer wider routes for the horse teams. Wherever possible the natural lie of the land is used to good effect - banking, water, hay bales, barrels and trees are much favoured by obstacle designers.

In the obstacle race there are compulsory gates and these are a minimum of 2.5 m wide. Sometimes narrow gates are also included to tempt drivers but there is always the risk of getting stuck! Drivers must pass through the gates in the sequence of letters but once a competitor has been through one gate, this may be gone through again at any time. Failure to pass through gates in the correct sequence means elimination. Other mistakes, such as turning over, or getting stuck and having to put a groom down, earn penalties.

Every second in an obstacle counts as one-fifth of a penalty point and so must be driven as fast as possible to reduce the number of penalties.

The winner is that driver with the fewest penalty points overall.

Carriage Driving Experiences

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