Powys Carriage Driving Group

National Indoor Driving Championships: Powys Carriage Driving Group

Powys Carriage Driving Group were thrilled that 7 of the club members who qualified took part in the Indoor Championships at Keysoe in April. Congratulations go to Peter Sidebottom who won the dressage phase in the Intermediate Horse class and was second overall. This is a huge achievement especially as Peter only took up driving 18 months ago and his young horse is a genuine novice having been broken to drive at that time. Jonathan Rees from Swansea was 4th in the Open Horse class. Sadly dad Gwyn wasn’t well enough to compete in the Veterans as I am sure he would also have done well .

The event attracts the best of the indoor trials drivers from across Britain and some classes were running with close to 20 competitors . It is therefore very impressive that a small mid Wales club can field 4 drivers in the top ten of their categories nationally. Other members who completed the gruelling 4 days of dressage , cones and four fast obstacles were Emily Ham 7th in Open Pony , Alison Dascome 8th in Novice Pony and Janice Sidebottom 11th in Novice Horse. Sadly Sue Johnson in Novice Horse and Ray Hopkins in the pony Pair class were both caught out by the penultimate obstacle and eliminated for an uncorrected error of course.

For the Saturday night entertainment an exciting inter region competition took place round a fast paced course of cones obstacles and a bridge to an appreciative crowed yelling encouragement. Jonathan Rees and Katherine were placed 9th which was incredibly good seeing that when riding Katherine experienced a tumble, but Emily driving her Welsh C with Peter Sidebottom back stepping the driving round and then leaping onto his horse to ride the course – all against the clock – came fourth overall out of the 15 regions ...much to the appreciation of their Welsh supporters . The event raised £1500 for Cancer Research !

The club plan to organise some training and competition days across Mid Wales for riders to join in with or without their horses and try this very exciting version of the sport !