The Slower Road

For carriage-driving fans, the final day of the Royal Windsor Horse Show (last Sunday) featured two beautiful, yet very different, events.

Throughout the morning, the four-in-hand competitors in the FEI driving event battled through the final phase of their three-day event, the cones competition.

I went over to the driving arena after watching show jumping and happened to catch the final (top in the standings) five drives of the day. Shown below are U.S. driver Chester Weber, Koos de Ronde (The Netherlands), and the winner of the event, Australia’s Boyd Exell.

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Immediately after the cones competition, members of the British Driving Society (and a few invited guests, including the CAA’s immediate past president, Tom Burgess, shown below, with his wife, Gloria, seated next to him) began to gather for their drive through the Windsor Home Park and their “Concours d’Elegance” competition.

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After the participants had gathered in a warm-up arena (below, one of the pretty turnouts, and a line-up of four-in-hand vehicles with Windsor Castle in the background), HRH Prince Philip arrived to lead them on their drive.

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