Powys Carriage Driving Group

With 14 entries on the day it was a busy start to 2012 for PCDG. The Club class is being very well supported and as confidence grows several are thinking of going “ affiliated” next season. The usual battles took place in both the club and newcomers classes with Pat Dutson finishing ahead of Vicky Kedward and Liz James ahead of Leana Stansfield on this occasion . Janice Sidebottom driving Paddy for the first time at our indoor trials showed great promise .

The battle for supremacy in Open Horse continued to enthral with close dressage scores , identical cones pens of 5 and fast obstacle times . On this occasion Jonathan Rees just had the edge to take the win from dad Gwyn by just 2.5 pens ! In Novice Horse Peter Sidebottom took advantage of the fact for once he was in a class of one to undertake some valuable schooling with his young horse Paddy, in particular familiarising him with the “ new” bridge and conifer arrangement that proved a bugbear to some in the cones course . Several older ponies too needed some enticing to make the crossing, that cunningly reappeared later in the course from the opposite direction ! Veteran Shetland Ted was adamant it wasn’t safe for his 9 year old driver – his refusal to cross racking up a hefty 113 pens and costing Rachel the win in Novice Pony – although once again they posted the best dressage of the day. Jay Snow with experienced pony Teapot had no such problems with cones finishing clear and fast with just 1 pen to take the class on 196.5 pens.

Open Pony had experienced young drivers Fleur Snow with Teapot , a silver medal combination from Hungary’s Junior World Trophy in 2010 , and Emily Ham with Jack. Both drove good dressage tests , impressive clear cones rounds – Emily edging ahead with 1 pen to Fleur’s 7 , but Emily’s stunning obstacle driving gave her the win by some margin with the Best Score of the day on 135.5 pens to Fleur’s 159.5 Fleur also drove a pony pair in the multiples class for the cones and obstacles phases.

The rosettes for the event were generously sponsored by Open Driver Jonathan Rees of J.M.Metals, Swansea and made by local company Big Penguin Rosettes.

It was a great day of driving and the club was pleased to welcome the Phillips family who have joined . They brought their pony DD to have a look at what carriage driving is all about and introduced her to long reining cones in the indoor school. Jen did a great job and DD took it all in her stride, in fact deciding that the conifers on the bridge were light refreshment as she went over !

We have 18 provisional entries already for February and a training day on 11th March. Do come along !