Sponsored by the Stone Bridge Carriage Driving Club

Donalda Arena, Donalda Alberta

Sunday, May 16 from 9AM – 3 PM

Come and join us for an informative day to discuss the in’s and out’s of Carriage driving!
There will be videos and demonstrations on the different buggies, harness and the suitability of the different equines along with how to go about it all safely.

Cost for the day — $15.00
Donuts & Coffee supplied. Please bring your own lunch.
For more information please contact
Judy at 403 728-3282
Or Cindy at 403 933-3706

June 4th, 5th and 6th, 2010
Location: Donalda Arena, Donalda Arena AB
Contact: Richard Holyoak
403 933-3706
cholyoak@telus.net

We are pleased to bring Bill Lower to Spruce View for 3 days of driving instruction. Here is your opportunity to take your skills and the ability of your horse to the next level. Bill will use his expertise to increase the flexibility and suppleness of your horse. Individual and group lessons will be available to meet your needs. If you’re just starting or want to fine tune a skill – this is your opportunity.

Space will be on a first come basis and lessons will be reserved with a post-dated cheque or cash.
Lesson cost – Members’ $75.00 private
Non members $100.00 Private.

Bill Lower
Bill Lower is one of the few long time driving experts in the United States beginning his career in1974. His years of experience and expertise have led to many impressive accomplishments including the winner of the USET’s 1981 National Four-In-Hand Championships. His competition success continued when he was selected to represent the United States Team in the 1987 World Pairs Championships and then going on to win the USET’s 1990 National Pairs Championships.

Lower’s expertise made him a much sought after coach by many top U.S. competitors of combined driving.. Drivers such as Ryan Weatherford, 2005 National Singles Champion, Scott Padgett, member of the U.S. Singles Team for 2004, Fritz Grupe member of the 2005 U.S. Pairs Team and Chester Weber of Live Oak Farm who is the most accomplished 4-In-Hand driver in the U.S. holding numerous World Championship titles in combined driving. The roster of successful Bill Lower students would fill up this page. The individuals mentioned are but a small sample of those who have benefited from Lower’s experience and coaching.

Mr. Lower still passes on his knowledge, experience and expertise at clinics throughout the United States and Canada. He currently resides in Williston, Florida with his wife Sherri where they are active members within the driving community.

Time to check out the events page to plan your summer.
We will be having 2 driving clinics, 2 events are planned and as many fun drives as we can this year.

» Click here to download a copy of Buggy Bits (2.4MB)

In This Issue

Editor’s Corner
Message from the President
Stone Bridge—Year in Review
Year in Review—continued….
List of upcoming events
Thank you, volunteers!
We’re buggy about our hobby!

Stonebridge Driving Club Board of Directors

President: Richard Holyoak
Vice-President: Morris Helmig
Secretary: Carol Thomas
Treasurer: Cheryl Fotheringham
Past President: Grant Boddy
Buggy Bits: Kathy Helmig – twobit@telusplanet.net
Directors:
Orville Sutton
Judy Orr—Bertelsen
Al Thomas

JUDY BERTELSEN EAGLE RIDGE FARM

JUDY AT THE 2010 STONE BRIDGE CUTTER RALLY

Our main farm is located in west central Alberta, where we have 3 quarters of land, one of which borders the mighty Red Deer River. We built our new home here about 7 years ago, and in those years I have been carving trails throughout the river quarter for riding and driving fun. Being a nature nut all my life, I have tried not to kill any trees, at least the bigger ones, as I chain sawed my way through many kms.

Progress was a bit slow at times, as I stopped to admire beautiful mosses, fungi or gaze over the river at passing elk, or watch with wonder, the majestic soaring eagles. It is at these times that my mind conjures up images of gnomes, fairies, teddy bears, unicorns, butterflies and decorated Christmas trees throughout the woods – the child in me that never grew up – so I began making ceramic folks, carving wind spirits, hanging stuffed little dogs in the dogwood tree, naming the trails,

– - and then inviting my grandchildren and friends to come driving and enjoy the trails with me.

Besides a forever child, I am also a very competitive adult and the lure of any driving competition is like a magnet to my soul.
These trails have grown into a combined driving trial area, with the addition of 4 obstacles, and the much appreciated help in designing and building them, by the Helmig Brothers of Rosaland Ab., allowing for our first combined driving trial with 21 entries, in 2009. 2010 leads us to our second annual event, with the construction of a 5th obstacle and the completion of The Bridge of Red Deer County, over the Battle Creek bed.

My two aged Arabian and half Arabian horses have honestly paid their dues – the Arabian setting flat racing history, setting new track records in every state that he ever raced in, except Delaware, and retiring sound having won 40 of 60 starts and only being out of the money one time.

The half Arabian, a strapping 16.2 hand black and white paint, earned his keep ponying the mornings and working afternoon and evening races, handily getting the toughest quarter horses and thoroughbreds to the gates. They later both became wonderful driving horses, when I returned to Canada. But now father time has caught up to them and they both deserve their retirement, to roam the pastures forever free.
As my pensioners gazed on in disbelief, we brought our first miniature horse home, followed quickly with the purchase of 5 more. It was not long until most of them were driving – single, pairs and then the team of 4 – my silver dapple apple dumpling gang.

The following fall I entered the High Country combined drive, with my good friend-groom-navigator, Shirley Brand, with The Gang, and we brought home the champion VSE trophy. We both love, as I believe my horses do, the thrill and challenge of the combined competitions. We also enjoy the occasional parade, fun drives, dress up competitions with the horses, eg – harvest drives with pumpkins and colourful leaves all over the cart and horse, Christmas night time parades with lights, dandelion spring events with yellow shirts and fly bonnets on the horse, Luke dancing to the Jailhouse Rock, in our jail attire, complete with handcuffs

— sleigh and cutter rallies, or invitational drives.

Three years ago I purchased Luke, my beautiful little Haflinger – he is so cute and so fun –well why not double the pleasure – so along came John, my second Haflinger, — Hang on Shirley- there is lots more fun to come.

Seldom does a day pass, that I am not out grooming the trails, enjoying a wonderful pleasure jaunt or training for a competition – splashing through the river and whizzing around in the obstacles, with either the minis or the Haffies. And best of all, to share this wonderful area with everyone. As you wind your way along Firefly Lane, past the enormous spruce on Drivin Me Buggy Trail, and climb up over Bunker Hill, to now feast your eyes up and down the Mighty Red, — there is no doubt in my mind that you will realize then, there really is a God.

They didn’t tell me it was called “the Suicide Seat” until later. Eighteen Hampshire kilometers and ninety minutes later, by which time it was too late. Beforehand there were harmless seductive remarks – “We’ll organize a trip for you,” and “you can go around with Pippa.” Suicide was never discussed, although life insurance briefly was, which should have been a tip in itself.

The previous morning I had arrived at the driving trials, little suspecting that within 24 hours I would be in them. But on a sunny afternoon when I might have been comfort-eating on a sofa with my eyes fixed on the televised Epsom Derby, I was perched instead on an open four-wheeled carriage in the woods of Farleigh Wallop, with my eyes fixed on eight enormous, grey buttocks.

The preparations were conducted with the mixture of gravity and gathering tension that is common to all genuinely competitive sports.

Poised in a seat beside and above me, driving doyen Pippa Bassett was gathering what looked like a dozen reins into one gloved hand just a few inches from my right cheek. She looked both cool and revved-up and I had decided I trusted her completely.

“Watch out in case I whack you in the eye with the whip,” she said.

The Lippazzaners pricked their long ears and flexed gently within their bodice of harness. Like spiders in a bath, my hands scuttled in vain around the carriage interior. I needed a safety belt or a handle, but would have settled for a crucifix, having discovered a sudden and powerful desire to hold something – anything – very tightly indeed.

“Alright?” inquired Pippa.

“I’m fine,” I tried to reply, but it came out as “mangs-fangs” because my teeth were holding each other so tightly. A pleasant middle-aged woman sitting by the starting line began a countdown – “Thirty seconds – fifteen seconds…” and a squirt of adrenalin – I think it was adrenalin – rushed through my lower regions. The woman opened an oddly peaceful smile and pronounced “Go!”

Starlings bolted from the trees as the team clopped into motion and Pippa struck out for the gentle slopes of Hampshire. My head began nodding as the unique sonic barrage of a horse-drawn vehicle crossing rough terrain rose like a storm around us. It is the noise of a giant centipede jogging down a gangplank with a ton of stolen cutlery. The dance of the carriage is as violent as its song, for the suspension appears to contain an imp whose pleasure is to whack your coccyx with a paddle at random intervals. Perhaps, I thought, these slopes are not so gentle after all. After five minutes of punching my chin with my knees, a voice behind my right ear observed that the course was actually “a little bit bumpy.” The source of this understatement was Trisha, one of two grooms who were travelling standing on the ‘back-step’ of the carriage – a zone which the manufacturers have thoughtfully equipped with all manner of attractive hand-holds, incidentally.

We plunged into a rutted trail that burrowed into the woods. As the carriage accelerated round a downhill corner I attempted to magnetite my bum to the seat using nothing but the power of human will. The attempt failed, but inertia succeeded as we cornered in the opposite direction and I thumped back into place like a sack of spuds.

“I’m just going to grab you while we hit this dip,” said a voice in my right ear, and Trisha – who is a trained nurse – took a temporary fistful of my jumper in what she might call the lumbar region. I thought about removing my belt and asking her to tie me to the frame, but a mental image of my trousers falling around my ankles prompted a re-think. And I was starting to enjoy myself. There is a hypnotic quality in the experience of a fast-rolling carriage, and a gradual increase in the psychological momentum as the marathon course unfolds.

“You end up in these amazing places you’d otherwise never even get to see,” observed Pippa, and a glance in any direction underlined her point.

Paused while the vet checked the horses’ pulse-rates, I found no desire to get off the carriage. In fact, I was quietly impatient to get rolling again. The second phase had a dream-like quality about it, and I realized that by some peculiar chemistry of friction and motion, all of the horses and humans involved had arrived at a collective state of near-total absorption. Suddenly the trip seemed more like a mission than a sporting enterprise, as if the journey itself was the whole point of the exercise.

Then we charged into the first of the seven obstacles and things got a little crazy. The clock was ticking in all our heads and as Pippa flung us back and forth between the gates I found myself willing the horses forward – probably the most meaningful contribution I could make, as my twelve stones of dead weight is not exactly an asset for someone trying to save time. I loved the obstacles. Pippa and co. really attacked them, and now the team nature of the game was thrown into sharp focus, with shouts and instructions going back and forth. As if racing four horses through mini-mazes of solid wooden beams wasn’t enough to occupy me, I was also operating a tape recorder and shooting pictures. Around the fourth or fifth obstacle – I lost count – the brilliant idea occurred to me that one of these busy hands could be usefully employed with the important business of hanging on. A second later we whacked the corner of a gate and lo and behold it was only my fingers that kept me on board.

And still the obstacles kept coming, and the world was now a high-speed kaleidoscope of slopes and hills and corners, with a soundtrack of rattling and Pippa’s voice yelling commands. At one point I heard the crowd cheering and the amplified voice of some cheerful commentator quipping merrily about some geezer from Horse & Hound magazine and realized he meant me. “How’s it going Ian?” echoed across the course, and I flashed him a thumbs up, which is quite an achievement at thirty miles an hour with a Dictaphone in one hand and a camera in the other. Wondering if I had gone completely mad, I found myself staring into the eyes of twenty teddy bears and a creature named Lamb Chop and wasn’t that the bug-eyed face of Bertie Bassett leering like a goblin as we barreled through the last obstacle? I suspect the course builder is a Stephen King fan, because that collection was the stuff of which nightmares are made.

And eventually – too soon for me, although probably not for Pippa or the horses – the carriage stopped, although my head was still rolling hours later. The stillness and silence seemed bizarre. I undid my chin strap and removed a small piece of tree from my hat. Everyone was grinning and chatting as we trundled back to the box. I wanted to deliver an eloquent speech of thanks but I actually mumbled something incoherent because most of my brains were still the wrong way up in my skull. I wandered aimlessly around for a while replaying the marathon in my head and humming like a demented bee. I phoned a few people and gibbered like an ape about driving trials until they told me to shut up. I realized I was into something that most people don’t ever get to do, and it’s not easy to explain the nature of the thrill. Inevitably I trolled back towards the people who do know, and returned to the horsebox.

In no time at all I accepted an invitation to help the Bassett crew with a scientific experiment involving large quantities of fortified liquid, and thence to the Barn and the hog-roast. As is traditional in the profession of journalism, I ate and drank enough to bloat a large shark, but none of it had much effect. I was mentally stuck in gear, still replaying the marathon, still hearing the hooves.

“When does it wear off?” I asked Pippa. “It doesn’t” she replied.