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| When our daughters were children they had
ponies and did all things “horsy” so we spent many of our weekends travelling
to various show jumping events around and about. When they grew up and left school
they did not have quite so much time so the ponies sort of gradually became ours.
It was quite good at first,a nice roast dinner on Sunday’s took the place
of sandwiches and a flask of coffee, followed by a nap in front of the T.V. However,
an expanding waistline prompted us to join a driving club.
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| Brighton Driving
Trials - 1990 |
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We have three
ponies which are mainly carriage driven. One is called Lucy, she is a black Dales
pony, 13.2hh. The other two ponies
are Rosie and Elle and are both Welsh
Section B ponies, they are both 12.2hh. Rosie is the
one with a flaxen mane and tail. |
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Tatton Park, Cheshire - 1989 | |
| We broke
the ponies to harness ourselves and competed in small club events. We found fellow
members to be very helpful and friendly. As we improved we travelled further away
competing in F.E.I events at Windsor, Brighton, Sandringham and Tatton Park in
Cheshire, always accompanied by our two dogs Milly a rough coated Jack Russell
and Fizz a Westie. We have shopping baskets fitted to the sides of one of our
vehicles so that they can come with us when we go out on a casual drive around
the lanes. As Ray is a Farrier by profession with his own forge where he makes
all of his horse shoes by hand, we do not use machine made shoes which most farrier’s use today. We
build all our driving vehicles in our forge especially for competition, with hydraulic
disc brakes which sounds very technical but are just scrap motor cycle brakes
– very effective. |
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Tatton Park, Cheshire - 1989 |
| We
developed a hydraulic swinging arm suspension, which makes every wheel independently
sprung to give maximum comfort and stability, we also have a hydraulic sprung
pole on our pairs vehicle and have also
developed a fifth wheel tapered bearing turntable which enables the vehicle
to turn much more smoothly. We build the metal wheels
entirely down to the hubs which we turn on the lathe. These vehicles get a “bashing”
going across country and have to be built with this in mind, being a certain weight
at maximum strength. |
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| Rosie and Lucy in the Caravan
Field - 2000 | | Ellie
Competing |
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| Ellie and
Rose in Cornwall | | Ellie and Rosie,Chilham
- 1989 |
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