If you’re trying (notice I said, trying) to follow the four-in-hand scores from the Riesenbeck CAI (Germany), you may be a bit confused at the moment. I was, until someone explained it to me.

There are forty pair drivers and twenty-nine four-in-hand drivers competing at Riesenbeck this weekend. For the pair drivers, the weekend is a straight-forward, just-like-normal event, and they started their dressage tests today (U.S. driver Misdee Miller goes in the second group, just before noon on Friday).

For the four-in-hand drivers, this weekend is a “regular” event PLUS a couple of extra classes added to make a separate event know as the German Driving Derby (Deutsches Fahrderby). So the four-in-hand drivers are basically competing in two different events: the CAI and the Derby.

The CAI is the usual three phases of dressage, marathon, and cones. The winners of the Derby are determined by using the drivers’ CAI scores and adding two other scores to them (there’s actually a complicated formula involved, but we won’t go into all that here). For the other two scores, each driver divides his or her team into two pairs. One pair is then taken in a standing presentation class, and the other pair is driven in a dressage test. These two “pair” classes in the Derby were driven today.

In the Derby, then, our two U.S. four-in-hand drivers, Jimmy Fairclough and Tucker Johnson, finished well in the pairs dressage, with Tucker in third place and Jimmy tied for fourth. Tucker placed third in the presentation as well (Jimmy was twelfth), so he’s in an awfully good spot at the moment in the Derby standings.

The four-in-hand drivers have their CAI (four-in-hand) dressage tests tomorrow. Tucker is first to go, bright and early, at 8:00 a.m. Jimmy will drive his test later in the afternoon.

If all this makes sense, you can follow the scores at www.hoefnet.com.