Featured Article (September 2002)

Get a rush out of Driving!

Virginia’s International and Advanced Carriage Drivers

While Virginia has always been dominated by equestrian activities, it has produced only a few international and advanced level carriage driving competitors. With the prospect of a new advanced level Combined Driving Event (CDE) at the Virginia Horse Center in June 2003 this could soon change. If the venue proves to be satisfactory in terms of its location and the quality of the competition course, Virginia could soon be a “Mecca” for the carriage driving community. Soon after the Yellowframe CDE was started in Southern Pines, NC, numerous carriage competitors and trainers moved to that area. CDE’s require a considerable amount of acreage and room for natural and man made obstacles - or so called “hazards.” Thus, it is difficult to arrange a venue for a CDE.

The Yellowframe competition was hosted by the owners of Sweet & Low. Recently, they sold their estate and a new venue had to be located in Southern Pines, NC. The great advantage of the new CDE course being constructed in Lexington is that it is a permanent facility and will not be subject to a landowner selling or desiring to no longer host a CDE. Accordingly, Lexington may become one of the permanent sites for the required trials for the World Driving Championships and other state and regional driving events. That would presumably encourage some driving enthusiasts to locate in the Lexington area. As they say “Birds of a feather flock together,” and that was certainly the case when the Yellowframe CDE located in Southern Pines.

As we look forward to starting an international level CDE in Virginia, we want to recognize the Virginians who have achieved national and international status in the carriage driving sport. Here are the stories of two Virginia drivers who have reached the highest levels of our sport over the years, a man who has provided the necessary equipment for the sport, and a view of a “newcomer,” who may bring Virginia a new world champion competitor.

Clay Camp of Ivy, Virginia was not only the first Virginian to compete in World Four-in-Hand Driving Championships, but one of the first Americans. Clay considers those experiences in Europe as some of the most memorable of a life long career in horses. He rode as a child and showed Saddlebred horses in South Carolina for many years. Upon moving to Virginia he started showing hunters and in 1960 and 1961, he had the High Point Green Hunter in the U.S., Sunset Hill, a thoroughbred.

Clay had a long career with the Tipton Auction Sales company and sold at the Saratoga Yearly Sale for forty years. In fact, a sale by Clay who had an agency business, set the Saratoga sales record of $4.6 million in 1984 which still stands today.

Clay’s horse interests put him in touch with an interesting array of equestrians. At one time he conditioned horses for Larry McPhail, then owner of the Yankees baseball team.

Clay’s experience and popularity resulted in his being president of the Virginia Thoroughbred Association and the president and a founder of the Virginia Horse Council. He was honored by the Virginia Horse Center when the outside hunter trial course was dedicated to him. Clay still serves on the Board of Directors of the Kentucky Horse Park and was recently named to the Board of the Virginia Horse Center.

Clay had always driven farm animals and had a team of draft horses. He enjoyed driving and started going to local pleasure shows with draft pairs. He did a lot of horse business in Europe and during visits to Holland purchased Gelderlanders in 1975 and 1976. The Gerlderlanders could do both FEI driving competition and coaching. With the Gelderlanders he started competing at Devon and the Toronto Winter Fair in the coaching events. European driving champion, Emil Jung came to Virginia in 1976 and Clay trained with him.

Although there were few CDEs in the US, the USET sent its first team over to the World Championships. Of the US team Clays says “We were miserable - really bad - we were driving Achenbach and I was told my hands looked like a bowl of spaghetti!” Camp, John and Jimmy Fairclough, and Jamie O’Rourke made up the team and Diedre Pirie served as the alternate. She was the only woman driver at the time in the US. From this “miserable” start the US has come along way. Clay bemoans that there were no American horses to compete in FEI. He tried to get Morgans to compete, but they were not big enough to go against the Warmbloods. He says “they couldn’t carry the weight and couldn’t do the speed.” He could not find any American horse that would fit the bill, though he encouraged others to make the try. He lauded Lisa Singer and what she has done with the Morgan pair, but wishes that American horses could have gotten in on the driving sport. Pirie imported Hungarians, Tippett imported Holsteiners and Clay imported the Dutch horses.

Clay went back to Holland in 1980 and consulted with Teidre Velstra, a world championship competitor, and looked at 50 to 60 horse. He picked eight and asked Velstra to make the final selection of five - none of them had driven before. They came to the US and soon were trained and competing. Clay won the Coaching Championships at the Royal Winter Fair, the Royal Windsor Horse Show, and the World FEI Driving Championships in Hungary and in Apeldoorn (1988). Clay moved to Kentucky eventually and turned his horses over to Bill Long to compete. Bill took them to Reisenbech in 1994.

He says the “First Royal Windsor Show always sticks in my mind. I made a big splash there.” (He turned over in the sand pit). That evening at a dinner for the competitors at the castle, Prince Phillip said to Clay, “I have to apologize to you, my brother-in-law has never finished a course!” The Duke of Richmond was Clay’s navigator on the marathon course, and in every competition where the Duke served as navigator the team had an accident. Seemingly, Prince Phillip thought he was either not a good navigator or not a “lucky charm navigator.” Clay, who is a man of stature, had rolled over on top of the Duke so he might have not only had hurt feelings about the spill, but some possible bruises too!

Laughingly, Clay told of the grand dinner party and the lavish and luxurious table settings, each monogrammed with the Royal Crown, such as salts, etc. He said it was a very loud party and at the end of the evening he noticed that “everything on the table had disappeared!” I asked - “into the guests’ pockets?” He acknowledged that was the case. Even so, it is my understanding that the Queen and Prince Phillip still entertain these “rollicking” horseman during every Royal Windsor Show. The coaching crowd worldwide seems to be a crowd that loves to party - drive hard during the day and party hard at night!

Clay and his team remained at Windsor Castle for several weeks and drove with Prince Phillip every day. One of his greatest thrills was sitting in the arena while they played our national anthem. He is still struck by the awe of representing his country, knowing he did the best he could, and that he was the best in his own country. At Apeldoorn, Clay fondly remembers finishing 23rd out of 46 four-in-hands, the highest placing of any “amateur.” Clay explained it was difficult to have a demanding career and find the time to train and compete against professionals who devoted all of their time to training.

Some of Clay’s most precious memories are those of the European Coaching Championships. He laughed considerably about Apeldoorn and his drive through the great water hazard. He heard the crowd shouting as he came into the water hazard. The shouting alarmed him as he thought he had entered the wrong gate into the hazard. Finally, Barbara, his wife, realized what all the yelling was about! As I mentioned Clay is a man of large stature and the crowds were all shouting, “Here’s the Big American, Here’s the Big American.” Shortly after the competition Clay and Barbara drove to France to DeVille for the big thoroughbred sale. He was approached by a stranger who said “We saw you on TV, the Big American!” It is possible to achieve fame in the coaching world! Clay said everybody was nice wherever the teams competed.

Clay’s four were eventually sold to the Cadwell sisters and split into two pairs. Although Clay is not competing with four-in-hands, he still has his hands on the goings-on in the horse world of Virginia. He sees no reason why the Oak Hill CDE couldn’t become an equestrian trial site for the Olympics. Looking ahead in his planning, Clay urged me to attend “All the Queen’s Horses,” an equestrian extravaganza being planned at the Kentucky Horse Park next July. He is awaiting the news as to whether the horse park will be the site selected for the “World Games.”

If Clay had the ability to be the first Virginian to compete in a driving world championship, he may well have the savvy and desire to bring such world events to Virginia.

Muffy Seaton remembers her first ride on a pony in a parking lot under a carousel tent. She was two-years-old. It was the moment of her pony addiction. Although a lot of ponies have passed through Muffy’s life since her childhood, she still finds it hard to believe that she competed at one of the world’s most famous horse shows, the Royal Windsor Horse Show at Windsor Palace with the Queen of England and Prince Phillip in attendance. In May 1997, Muffy was named the USET selection to represent the US in the Pony Pairs Division at Windsor. It turned out to be one of the most incredible experiences of her life. She was 3rd overall in the competition, and the highest placed American at the show.

Muffy recalls the unloading process after flying her three ponies into Britain. She unloaded her ponies from a “cattle truck” in a huge field near the Castle. Her competition arrived in huge, handsome, monogrammed lorries. She thought “what the heck am I doing here?” Although, the event was emotionally exhausting, she would not have traded the experience for anything in the world.

The ponies that accompanied her were Farley Brent and Farley Maurice bred by Joan Dunning of Whitepost, VA. Muffy says the ponies are still competing with Joan and have been the National Champion Pony Pair for the last four years. Muffy was first exposed to carriage driving by Nancy Bedford of Middleburg who has long been an active driver and officer of the Piedmont Driving Club, the Potomac River Driving Association, and organizer for many years of the annual Piedmont Driving Show. Nancy invited Muffy to attend the World Driving Championships in Apeldoorn, Holland in 1979. Muffy had done some driving with her sister’s hunter pony, but was mostly involved with showing hunters in Long Island and in Washington state. At 5’ 9” Muffy said she needed at least a 16.3 hand horse. But her real love was ponies. The Apeldoorn championship intrigued Muffy and she called the one Virginian who was then prominent in driving, Bill Lower of Charlottesville. She started taking driving lessons with Lower. Her love for driving was so great that she convinced her aging mother, Ann Dodderidge, to start driving and her mother competed successfully in pleasure driving shows for the rest of her life. Muffy has not yet gotten her husband, Doug, to drive, or her son, Jesse, but Doug has always been her “back-step guy,” her navigator. Doug accompanied her to Windsor along with friend, Darrow Long from Charlottesville, who was the navigator.

The first driving pony Muffy acquired was a “mongrel” black pony that had foundered. Nonetheless, Muffy soon took the pony to advanced driving level. Muffy’s next driving pony was “Paleface,” a Section B Welsh pony she bought from Nancy Bedford. Paleface became well known in the driving world and won everything for years. Now 23-years-old he is still teaching other people to drive with Susie Buchanan, a British trainer and competitor located in Pennsylvania. Muffy’s next exposure was to the British Dartmoor pony. She received a pair of Dartmoors on consignment to break and sell. She took the ponies to the Gladstone, NJ, CDE along with a potential buyer as her navigator. The pair ended up winning the training level pairs event under some of the most prominent US and foreign judges. At that point Muffy told the potential buyer that she just could not sell the ponies. Thus, she began the ongoing Dartmoor breeding program and a long series of national wins with her Dartmoors.

In 1991 Muffy imported a Dartmoor stallion, Senruf Jihad, from Britain. Later she imported a few mares. She has bred two or three mares each year since 1992. She was very impressed with the Dartmoor’s driving ability, but realized that they were very small in size - a disadvantage in competition against larger ponies. She became interested in breeding a bigger pony. She went to long time friend, Carlton Huhn, of Battersea Morgans and he loaned her a 1988 Registered Morgan mare from his herd to breed to her Dartmoor studs. Muffy had trained several of the Battersea Morgans for clients so she knew their personality and tractability. From these crosses over several years she got the size and personality that she envisioned. Muffy said the Dartmoor-Morgan is a lovely cross and has great potential. Muffy has now acquired another Morgan mare and is starting another series of crosses.

Although Muffy competed at Windsor in the pair pony division, she is also a very excellent four-in-hand driver and has won many championships nationally in that division.

Muffy acquired a great reputation over the years as a clinician in driving instruction. She also has had an American Driving Society “R” judges license and judges all over the US. Muffy believes that judging is a wonderful way of meeting people and learning. “You have to know your stuff, you have to concentrate, but it’s a great way to see the country.” This year she has only been at home four weeks since Christmas! Husband Doug and a small staff manage her farm, “Shepherd’s Purse,” located near Middleburg. A testament to her popularity is a group of drivers in Oregon who invite Muffy every other month to the farm of Sally “Jo” Petro.

Muffy earned the British Harness Horse Instructor License, a significant accomplishment. She is the only person in the US to hold the license. She says “it’s equivalent to a college degree in Britain.” Britain has a very strict and tough criteria for the license. The emphasis is on tradition and history as well as the ability to train appropriately. She would like to see a similar program established in the US through the American Driving Society or some other equine group in order to keep US standards of judging high.

Muffy is seldom without a project. Her latest passion is the Horse Expos and bringing driving to their audiences. She did presentations at the Iowa Horse Expo and the Minnesota (St. Paul) Expo and she will do the Equine Affair in Springfield, MA. The reception has been awesome. During an expo she demonstrates any number of driving skills, from how to break a driving horse to Derby Driving.

Chester Weber of Ocala, FL is bringing Derby Driving, a European sport, to the US. It is an indoor event - basically a race between teams of four-in-hands with hazards/obstacles done at a “flat out” gallop. It seems that single drivers are now doing it. I saw a similar event at the World Pairs Championships in Germany last August. The Grand Finale of the Gala evening was a stadium of 30 or more carriages and two chariots, thundering around the arena for nearly 15 minutes. The only mishap was when the six-horse tandem split a pole but without injury. My seat mate, Mimi French Thorington, whose Morgans were competing in the World Pairs, was so undone by the event she had to look away! I expect that Muffy will soon be arranging a similar “Gala Gallop” in Virginia.

Muffy is looking forward to new Oak Hill CDE next June in Lexington. She is thrilled and believes the hills in Lexington will create a challenging course particularly for small ponies.

For those of you who know Muffy Seaton you realize the energy, expertise, and fun that Muffy will bring to any event. We should be proud of the first woman driver from Virginia to represent the US in driving abroad.